The Diary of Edith Marshal
by heavenseed
Summary: The Doctor is ill and comes to Martha for help.  Martha's mentor Edith takes the Doctor on a new adventure, but all is not what it seems.  The TARDIS likes Edie, a lot, and it scares the Doctor. Can they heal each other? 10/Martha/Jack/Original Character
1. Chapter 1

His eyes were so very old. Hard, brown orbs full of wisdom and light and laughter, holding back so much loneliness and regret. He lived in the moment, so that he wouldn't have time to remember. Oh, there was so much he wanted to forget and it haunted him. The bright, beautiful girl at his side was held at arm's length while she wanted nothing more than to embrace him and keep him forever in her arms. Yes - I saw all of that as I started an IV of normal saline, wide open. His companion insisted on taking his vitals herself, keeping her stethoscope tucked possessively in her pocket. This was a Martha Jones I did not know. This was not the girl who gossiped over coffee instead of studying. She was a harder person than the Martha I knew.

The first time I saw him, he was being half-carried by Martha, into an unfinished part of the new hospital wing. He was gasping for air as Martha dragged me, my wrist in her iron grip, away from the coffee bar in the lobby. And I swear I heard the man gasp, "Nice little shop."

She needed my help, she said, and didn't know where else to go. My own heart was pounding out of my chest as I gathered things out of the supply and grabbed thee 100ml bags of saline from the med room. The O2 tank was the hardest bit to acquire. Luckily, at 7am, the halls were fairly quiet and I was able to get back to Martha and our patient unhindered.

The man seemed unable to speak, his skin like parchment, eyes sunken. Sucked dry, Martha said. Indeed, he looked as though all the fluid had been wrung out of him. He was obviously thin to start; there would not have been much to wring out. Martha's brow was knitted together in deep concern, and I kept an eye on her, even as I started the O2 and the IV. As she wiped his dry forehead with a damp towel, he drifted into a fitful sleep.

Now it was my turn to drag her away, out into the hall. I pulled her into a small supply kitchen.

"What the hell is going on?" I opened a tin of apple juice and put it in Martha's hand. "Who is this guy?"

She drained the cup in one swallow. "The Doctor."

"Who?" I asked, pressing a packet of crisps into her hand.

She tore into them as she spoke. "A friend." She mumbled, "You'd never believe it if I told ya."

"You're gonna have to tell me! I'm about to miss rounds for you!" I handed Martha another tin of juice. "Just what happened to that man?"

I followed her back to the room as she tried to avoid my questions. Her companion was restless, but appeared less drained. He was semiconscious and moaning.

"Loo." Martha darted into the adjacent bathroom and slammed the door. The man on the gurney cried out and I instinctively took out my own stethoscope, deftly opening his shirt. His breath was labored and he was writhing beneath me. When I help the stethoscope's bell to his chest, I heart it. At first, I thought it might be an S4 or a murmur. But placing the bell on the right side of his chest, I had no doubt. Two heartbeats.

His hand was on my arm - reassuring and gentle. I looked up into his eyes, now clear of pain. I couldn't move, the sound of two heartbeats pounding against my ears. I heard Martha's voice behind me.

"Alien. Binary cardiovascular system." Still, I could not tear my eyes from his. Slowly, he lowered the O2 mask. I'm sure he saw fear and disbelief in my gaze as he held it. He stroked my arm reassuringly.

"It's OK. And thank you." He smiled as he passed out.

* * *

><p>Martha cried and pleaded and changed her mind a dozen times in the next few hours. She attempted to explain to me what was going on and I had to accept on blind faith (and my trust that she was not bat-shit crazy) that what she said was true. What I knew to be true was that the man we had hidden upstairs was gravely ill, Martha was beside herself, wanting to help him, but fighting some deep internal struggle to stay away, and she was begging me to look after him. Martha was like the little sister I never had. Mentoring her the past few years had taken the edge off my own loneliness, though she could never know that by helping her, I truly had nothing to lose. No one need ever know I was gone, she said. But there was no one to worry about me. There was no one for me to worry about. What was clear was her worry for the man on the gurney... The one who was recovering much too quickly.<p>

As I learned later that, as he was wont to do, he was quick to apologize for the intrusion, and insisted he was fine alone. Knowing Martha as I did, I knew better. She was pragmatic and honest and if she was worried, I knew I should be worried too. Besides, he was weak. In the end, it was our shared desire to see that Martha finished her exams, and if going with this man on whatever danger they both alluded to, then so be it. I left the hospital, for what was to be the last time, and I was to meet the two of them later in the day at the coffee shop Martha and I frequented.

In my apartment, I put what few items I truly felt I needed into my satchel. Journal, iPhone, favorite lipgloss, stethoscope, small med kit, tampons (where would I find more?), a ball of yarn attached to a recently begun sock, clean underwear and small flash drive I kept in a locked drawer of my desk went into the farthest reaches of my bag. I changed into my favorite rugby shirt, sturdiest bra and my favorite blue leather boots. Pulling on my husband's old knit hunting shirt with the leather elbows and pockets, I gathered my courage. I was leaving everything behind. Again. Only my friend Martha would know the truth, and even she would never know where I had gone, only with whom. "Here we go, Edie", I said after pulling my red curls up into a bun. I didn't look back as I walked out. I felt a little insane and more than a little like I was about to be on Candid Camera.

* * *

><p>I was a little surprised when I met the Doctor at the cafe and he gave me a once-over.<p>

"Traveling light?" He asked. Martha had already gone, without saying goodbye.

"What else do I need?" I felt complete with my satchel strapped across my body. I was a little worried.

"Not a whole lot. The TARDIS will provide."

With a heavy sigh, I replied, "Well, you need more help and Martha needs to finish her exams. And I need..." We stopped and started at each other.

"Right!" The Doctor pushed himself from the counter. "Allons-y!" He held out his hand and I took it, leaving the cafe and my old life behind.

* * *

><p>I hadn't believed Martha when she'd told me about the TARDIS. A big, wooden blue box - the description didn't do it justice. I laughed when I saw it. "Seriously?" I asked. The Doctor was amused at my incredulity. "Wait'll you come in..." He unlocked the skinny door and backed inside, so he could see my face as I entered.<p>

It was like being at the bottom of a champagne glass full of golden bubbles. The walls were effervescent, made brighter by the glowing blue tube rising from what appeared to be a console. The Doctor's eyes twinkled as he watched me. I was honestly more taken in by his delight than the beautiful vessel around me.

"Hmm. Nice." I smiled and feigned disinterest. I walked around the console, dropped my bag near the jump seat and said, "Well, are we going?"

The Doctor frowned. Just as Martha said, he was not used to people taking his beautiful ship for granted. "Really? It's just… nice?" He sauntered up to the console and stroked the railing, as if petting a sad dog. He glanced up at me, eyes full of sorrow.

"No. It's AMAZING!" I jumped up and spun around, unable to keep up the facade.

The Doctor roared with laughter. "Oh yes she is! Just wait!"

"Martha wasn't kidding!"

"Make yourself at home. We have one stop to make before we head out. That last lot nearly sucked the TARDIS dry, nevermind me." He started flipping switches and pressing buttons, and the blue tube in the center of the console came to life. "Need to see a friend about a hydrogen converter." I let him place my hand on a lever, his grin wide. "Ready?" I nodded in response, unable to speak. Our hands released the lever together and the big blue box took flight.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time my boot came in contact with an alien, it was 1939. We were in a tenement in Harlem, where prostitutes were being eaten from the inside out by a parasite laid inside them by a shapeshifting alien. I had a hard time figuring out just what what going on myself. One minute we were being invited into the apartment of a very lovely woman and her daughter, and the next I was kicking a very large many with crazy eyes and too many teeth in the face. There was a sickening crunch as my boot connected.

"Edie!" The Doctor grabbed me away from the creature writhing before me. He put himself between the three women and the creature, holding a cobbled-together contraption like a cross held out to a vampire.

"Don't make me use this! I know what you are, Slavrovite!" The Doctor's teeth were clenched. "I'm giving you one chance!"

The creature roared like an injured animal.

"You've left me no choice." The Doctor's voice was remarkably apologetic.

From the open apartment doorway came a burst of flame. The creature's clothes caught on fire as it turned to the source of pain. I saw the eyes of a disheveled, terrified young man for just a second before he fled, the creature howling in pain as it tried to follow.

"No!" The Doctor yelled and chased after the creature. "Edie! Water!"

I scrambled to the kitchen, followed by the younger of the two women and we filled the first two items we saw with water, a watering can and a mixing bowl. We ran out, soaking ourselves as we went, following the screams and smoke. We were too late, however. Behind the building, we found the Doctor and the young man, who took off in a sprint when he saw us. On the ground lay the remains of the creature, smoldering in the cold drizzle.

"Oh my God!" The younger woman behind me was visibly shaking. She dropped the metal bucket and it sloshed over the corpse with a clang and a hiss.

"What the - " I started.

"He didn't have to kill the poor thing!" The Doctor looked dismayed and a little angry. He threw his gadget (which looked like a drill on a hockey stick to me) on the ground in disgust. He saw me holding the empty mixing bowl. "What were you gonna do with that? Bake it a cake?"

"What do we do with it now?" I ignored his cheekiness as I touched the charred, smoking flesh with my boot. The Doctor ran his hand through his hair, making it spike crazily. "We can't leave it here." I amended.

"Right!" The Doctor cut me off. "You:" He pointed at the other woman. "Get your best dress on! You:" He pointed at me, "Help me get this thing to the TARDIS."

"What are we doing?" I yelled.

"Am - am I going somewhere?" The girl, still staring in horror, shook herself awake and eyed us suspiciously.

"Edith, meet Billie. Billie Holliday, Edith Marshal." I could only stare at the beautiful girl in front of me. "Now, Billie, shower. We've got half an hour to get you to work in Greenwich Village and we can't take the subway."

* * *

><p>With awe a thick cloud in my head, I watched Billie Holliday sing "Strange Fruit" at The Society Club. In 1939. I was still in a blood-stained dress, but I couldn't have cared less. The Doctor had ordered a ginger soda and was chatting up another patron as I sat, completely hypnotized by the music.<p>

At the end of the night, to roaring applause, as Billie stepped off the stage, The Doctor and his new friend approached us. Billie was reluctant to release me from our embrace.

"You saved my life." She said, her voice more grateful than her words.

"I guess its kind of my job." I replied lamely.

"Ladies. It's time Edie and I were off." The Doctor was all smiles. Nothing to suggest we had just divested New York City of an alien menace. Behind him, the other man watched on.

Billie pulled the Doctor into a hug. "Thank you, Doctor. I don't care if you're skinny or white. Thank you." We all chuckled as she let him go.

A hand and attached arm budged it's way into our conversation. The Doctor's new friend was offering it to Billie. "Milt. Milt Gabler." Billie shook the man's hand apprehensively. "Can I buy you a drink?"

With trepidation, Billie walked away with the man, toward the bar. We watched them go, beaming.

"Wow." It was all I could utter.

"I know." The Doctor watched on, a huge smile gracing his face.

"We just watched Billie Holliday sing at the Society. We were there the moment she gets discovered."

"I know." The Doctor took my hand in his and led me out the back way into the alley, where the TARDIS sat like a sentinel beneath a streetlamp. "A Holiday with Billie Holliday. A Holliday Holiday." I chuckled, still in a daze.

As he put the key in the lock, The Doctor stopped and took a long last look around him. His gaze settled at last on me. "Are you ready for another go?"

I sighed heavily. Was I? Was I ready? Nothing Martha had told me had prepared me for this. Our first "adventure" had been a trip to a dusty space station some light years away, where I listened to the Doctor haggle badly for the part he needed. The deal led us to Harlem, and Billie Holliday.

"Will it always be like this?"

"Well," he boasted, "Sometimes there's a whole planet to save, or government to overthrow. Not always dangerous. Sometimes. Well, all the time. Well, I hope so." The tall man leaned heavily on the frame of the TARDIS. "Does that scare you?"

"Not really." I shrugged dramatically. "Now get in and drive." I pushed playfully at his arm.

The Doctor opened the TARDIS door and led me inside.

* * *

><p>After meeting Billie Holliday, I couldn't stop smiling. Even when hanging above a pit of acid or running for my life. The running... my boots had never seen so much action, run so fast or so far. They had taken me across jungles and deserts, away from aliens, mutants and even a military faction once. And each time we stopped, I found my hand in his. The feel of my satchel against my hip, his shoulder against mine, the TARDIS humming in my mind and the sole of my blue boots on the ground: those were the things I looked forward to now. I had Martha to thank for this. Martha was still one Earth, her PhD under her belt now, I suppose. She had no idea what a favor she had done for me. And it had only been a week.<p>

In that first week, I had barely slept, hardly eaten and knew only the main control room, the wardrobe, the kitchen and the bathroom nearest the console. There had been no time or inclination to explore further. The jump seat and a few hours sleep for an experienced ER doctor was plenty. Even so, I was enjoying the looser fit of my jeans and the way each sprint seemed to get easier. What I lacked in sleep and food, was made up for by the Doctor. Enigmatic, he was, even if he himself didn't know it. When he smiled, it was like the sun coming up over the horizon, the places where wrinkles would form if he were human framing his kind old eyes. Every time I had occasion to hold on to arm or otherwise touch him, I was surprised at the strength of his body beneath the layers of suit, shirt and jacket. He was thin, but he was amazingly strong, both in body and in mind. I could see the barriers he held in front of himself like a shield even as he raged against some wrongness, often when he clenched his jaw and bared his teeth. He was like an animal on defense, giving a warning to a predator while he protected his young. He was not cruel and he was not without sympathy, but he was not a fool. It thrilled me every time he gave his ultimatum, swept his coat tails back and put his hands in his pockets. Our foe would not back down and he would bow his head, resigned, and put things right.

Martha had warned me that I would want to be a better person after being with The Doctor. Indeed, before meeting Billie Holliday, I had taken my time in the wardrobe room to find just the right dress for the time period, and, unashamedly, to impress the Doctor. As I walked out into the control room and caught his eye, my heart leapt into my throat. I heard him catch his breath as he looked up from the scanner. For the first time in over 10 years, I was told, in truth, that I was beautiful, and I believe he meant it. Not only did I suddenly care what he thought of me, I was seeing the entire universe through his eyes. Kind, playful, loving eyes that carried ages and ages of pain. I understood, with him, the importance of a companion, a moral compass, and someone to throw you the rope. I could see, also, why Martha had fallen for this man. Mysterious, playful, brutally intelligent and dangerously curious wrapped up in a pinstriped package. But I was nearly 15 years Martha's senior. I knew from the first moment his hand was in mine that I was at arm's length to the Doctor. I had loved before and had no allusions that I would find that same kind of love ever again. I could see the same in him. He wanted a kindred spirit, and because of who he was, he could afford little else.

Still, I was only human. For the first time I could laugh with my real smile, and it was inevitable that my endorphins would lead to high levels of pheromones. I trusted that a Time Lord who had traveled with humans knew this and that he understood that, at nearly 40, I was too old to act on hormonal impulse.

Nevertheless, my clinical curiosity got the better of me.

* * *

><p>Running back to the TARDIS through dense vegetation, toward a river we could hear in the distance. We were in the middle of a civil war we couldn't hope to be of help to and turned back before we could become part of events. Something like napalm was being sprayed behind us and our only chance was to get to the river before it caught up with us. We were being led by a rebel faction that agreed to lead us back through the jungle, as they would pass where we wanted to go. When we reached the river, I could do nothing but swear. We were on top of a steep ridge, where the river became a waterfall and the TARDIS was in the valley below us. While I caught my breath, the Doctor argued.<p>

"You said this would lead is back to the valley!"

"I said it would lead you back to the river." The Commander of the rebels reasoned.

"ARGHHH!" The Doctor kicked at the scrub at the edge of the ridge.

"I'm sorry Doctor, end of the line." The Commander called to his troops. "Upstream. We can cross at the rapids."

Nine men and women left us overlooking the valley, the TARDIS and a waterfall. Before we could even nod a goodbye to the rebels, I saw it. A craft no bigger than an Evac helicopter came through the trees, headed straight for us. Behind it, like exhaust, came a fine mist. We watched in horror as trees and grass melted like candle wax in it's wake.

"Run!" we both shouted, but while the Doctor moved the next instant, I hesitated to look over at the band of rebels, to see if they'd heard us. The next second, my skin was white hot. I ran as if on fire, jumping into the river, after the Doctor.

My last thought before going over the waterfall was that I hoped I would hit my head on a rock at the bottom.

A free fall and then I was drowning, falling into an airless void, my screams letting cold, burning water into my lungs. My skin was still on fire, pain pushing out all thought. I didn't feel the arms beneath my shoulders, nor what it felt like to scream and cough at the same time. I saw sunlight and heard the aircraft and my own voice, as if far away.

"Get it off me!" I screamed as I was carried through the glade toward the TARDIS. My words echoed inside the control room and I thrashed, trying to rip my own clothes off, tear my hair off scalp, gouge my eyes out.

Minutes, hours, days of agonizing pain later, I felt a cold blast wash over me. My vision cleared and I was in a room covered in white powder. Golden tiles emitted their own light over me, sprawled on what appeared to be a shower floor. Sitting against the wall at my feet was the Doctor, also covered in white powder. He was panting, his tie hung loosely around his neck.

"Water. 50 degrees." His vie was clipped and anxious. He moved toward me. "Edie. Say something. Anything." He was pulling off my boots as the walls began spraying warm water over us.

"It hurt." Was all I could manage. I rolled to my side to keep from drowning. I felt cloth being peeled from my legs. Looking down, I could see that most of my clothes were in pieces. "Oh God." I moaned and the room tilted in a sickening fashion.

"Sorry. Sorry." He was soaked through, but was concentrating on removing the pieces of my clothing as gingerly as possible. I could only moan in pain. The white hot burn was replaced with a dull ache, like a browning sunburn.

"It was a dissolving agent, with some sort of nerve gas. Soda bath should have neutralized it. I hope those rebels fared better than you did. Blimey." He gently pulled the sleeves off one arm and helped me sit up so he could do the other.

"Like napalm." I said.

"Yes. Napalm. Nasty stuff. Barbaric." He pulled the tie out of my hair to let the water run through it. I was down to my undergarments, which hung on bravely. "Um..." Tugging an ear, he fell silent.

"Towel." I forced a smile up at him.

"Right." He smiled with relief. "Water - "

"Leave it." I stopped him with a hand on his arm. His eyes were full of concern behind the curtain of hair that fell against his forehead. A brief image of the Doctor taking a hot, soapy shower flashed across my mind.

He left the shower room, tugging at his own clothes, peeling the soaking coat off with his suit jacket. He was gone only a few minutes. I tried to sit up and take stock of my injuries. I looked down at my skin; it looked like I had wrestled with a bonfire and lost. I stood slowly, using the tile walls for balance. I pulled off the few remaining pieces of clothing.

"Water off." I said aloud as The Doctor entered, a towel around his neck and another open in front of him. He wore only his soaking trousers and jumper.

Exhausted, I had no shame in letting him see me nude, but I stayed facing the wall nonetheless, knowing his desire for chastity. He wrapped the huge, fluffy towel around me and in one swift movement, he picked me up as if I were a child. He carried me easily, smiling down and babbling about the fabric from which the towel was made. I simply let him talk and snuggled into the towel and against his shoulder.

I have no idea where he took me. I had never seen the room before or since, and I didn't see much of it while I was there. It was remarkably warm and the bed was unbelievably soft. I couldn't take any of it in, as the pain of the towel pulled away from my burns sewed my eyes shut in agony.

"My bag, my bag, my bag." I panted. I tried to express what I wanted - the morphine kit in my bag - but he was smoothing my brow with his thumbs and telling me I was alright. Something cool began moving over me. One strong hand held my head against the Doctor's shoulder and the other was spreading balm over my wounds. I don't recall much else, only that it smelled of calamine and grapefruit.

* * *

><p>Some time later, I woke with a start.<p>

"Seriously? I mean really! What was I thinking when I did that?" I could hear the Doctor under the console, talking to the TARDIS, sonic screwdriver buzzing.

I was wrapped in a quilt, laying on the jump seat, wearing clean clothes. I felt as if I had been roused from a deep sleep by a telephone, shaky and still half asleep. Words on the scanner screen caught my eye.

"Doctor?" I called.

"Edie?" Buzz, Buzz. "Are you awake?" A clang, sparks and a hissed curse before the Doctor poked his head through the opening in the floor. "Oh, hello!" His smile was radiant. I couldn't help but smile back. He climbed out up from the floor, screwdriver in his teeth. I noted how good I felt and how happy he looked.

"I was getting worried about you! Kept you out here so I could keep an eye on you. How are you feeling?" He kept his distance, leaning against the railing of the console, in front of the scanner screen.

"I feel great actually. A bit shaky."

"Probably hungry. Healing wounds need protein! What would Edith Marshal like to eat?"

"Steak. A big steak with mushrooms, " I rose from the jump seat and approached the Doctor, "and a coupla beers. I deserve a beer, dontcha think?" I was standing directly in front of him.

"Steak it is - " I put my finger to his lips.

"Anything for a beautiful woman like me, eh?" I raised an eyebrow.

"What... what do you... um..." The Doctor's ears were beginning to turn red.

"Don't worry, I don't think you were trying to cop a feel or get a cheap thrill. Don't worry." I gave him my best sleepy smile. I reached up and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you for saving my life, Doctor. Again." I reached behind him to switch off the scanner screen. When I pulled away, his eyes were wide, brow furrowed and lips silent.

* * *

><p>Later, as we ate in some American steakhouse, I tried to dig a little deeper. I had seen the notes on the scanner, knew he had mixed feelings about having seen me nude, but I wanted to hear it from him.<p>

"So, do you always find a chance to get your companions naked in the shower?" I teased. The Doctor choked on his bite of food.

"Edith! I do not get my companions naked!" He was blushing fiercely, eyes watering as he coughed.

I chuckled. "Sorry. Couldn't resist."

"I was tending to your wounds. And that was no fun for me either, let me tell you. I have the utmost respect - "

"It's OK, Doctor!" I laughed. "So you don't get us naked for recreational purposes." I shrugged.

"Yes! No! I mean... " He stammered. I could only giggle. "Edith!"

"Sorry. I'm sorry." I apologized as he shook his head. I took his hand in mine. "Thank you for that. Really. Although, you must admit, it would be kind of fun... Ever 'used' that shower before?"

"We are not.. We are not having this conversation." The Doctor grabbed a dessert menu and feigned interest.

"You're telling me that you've never - "

"Never ever!" He said angrily.

"Seriously? Have you seen you? Martha is going to *flip* when I tell her what happened! And if I may say so, as a friend, you really could use it." I downed the last of my beer.

"What?" He was incredulous and still on the mad side. "I do not 'need'... that. No one 'needs' it. Even lesser species can procreate without… that. My people did away with that a long time ago."

"Yeah? Maybe that was the problem. No nookie make Time Lord stuffy."

He let out a chuckle then. It turned into a laugh. Soon we were both laughing. He could see through my flirting, could still see the pragmatic person I was. I admitted to him my interest in his experience with humans and their fragile hearts, but he would only give analytical, logical responses. It was like talking with an old colleague from medical school, familiar, but academic.

After dinner we agreed that we needed downtime for me to heal and for the Doctor to do some much-needed repairs on the TARDIS. We left the restaurant, hand in hand, as close to, and yet as far away from, each other as we had ever been.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N Thank you ZuzuTheZombie for being my Beta. Reviews would be nice – Good or bad, its nice to know if someone is reading! The song in this chapter is David Gray's Sail Away; I do not own Doctor Who.**

* * *

><p>In Cardiff, refueling and repairing. We would be there at least 24 hours, during which I planned to explore the TARDIS and perhaps see Cardiff. But after the few days we'd had, and my injuries not quite healed, I was exhausted. I was curled up on the jump seat, listening the Doctor sing to himself as he worked below the main console, finishing the repairs on the hydrogen converter, whatever the hell that was. I watched numbers and letters on the main screen swirl and change, beginning to drift off. "Scoot!" I sat up with a start as the Doctor sat down next to me, a metallic whatzit in his hand, sonic screwdriver humming. As he held it above his head to get a better look, I laid my head in his lap.<p>

"Oh." He said in surprise, "Hello."

"Hi." I responded, and began to push my mind back into oblivion.

"What's this then?" The Doctor was tense beneath me.

"I was here first!" I reasoned.

"Oh." The Doctor took a minute to think - an unusual occurrence. I took his silence as a chance to drift off. "WAIT!" He protested. "This is my ship!" I just shrugged. He sat helpless as my pillow, warm and comfortable beneath my head. I don't know how long I lay there, but he sat there as I slept. I turned over, waking briefly, my face pressed against his stomach and I could feel him breathing deeply. I noted that he needed the rest and fell back asleep.

I don't know what eventually woke me, being stared at or the feel of long fingers through my hair. The Doctor grinned down at me as he rubbed one eye with his fist, like a sleepy child.

Before he could say something witty, I asked, "What did you dream about?"

Stretching, he said, "Oh, this and that - what was, what is, what will - "

"No, really." I interrupted his banter.

"You, actually." He was wistful. "You?"

I immediately regretted asking. "I try not to dream." This time, for the first time, it was my turn to avoid the question.

"What? Why? I'm sure you have fantastic dreams!" He said as I rose and leaned against the console.

"Not so much. I try not to dream." I tried to walk away.

He grabbed my arm, concern wrinkling his brow. "What, why is that?" The subject I most dreaded wanted to come to the surface. But I didn't know if I could bear it.

"Too much I'd rather forget, Doctor. You wouldn't understand." I tried to pull away.

He kept my hand in his and stood, leaning a little too close. "Oh, Edie, you really don't know me that well at all."

* * *

><p>The water lapped lazily at the rocks below us and as the sun set on a perfect Cardiff day, I told him my story. I tried, at least. How does one average human woman's life compare to that of a 900 year old time traveler? But he was willing to listen to the story I had never told anyone on this side of the Atlantic.<p>

"I was living in New York. I was just finishing med school. It was almost summer, and there were thunderstorms. I sat on the porch in the swing and waited, watching the lightening and willing it down on me. They never came home that night. After the rain stopped, I knew it was a matter of time before the police came. Something in me knew they were gone. A jack-knifed semi on the interstate. My youngest held on for three days. My husband and older daughter were in the front seat and died instantly. I had to take her off life support." I played with the ring on my left hand, where my wedding band used to lay. "I left after that. I took the first flight as far away as I possibly could. I spent three years in Japan, and then got a job in London. I've never looked back." While my eyes were on the ocean, his were on me. Huge and sympathetic, I had never seen him so concerned.

"I'm sorry Edie. So very sorry. What were their names?" He asked quietly.

"Marcus and Samantha. Ruby was my little one." It had been nearly ten years since I had uttered their names aloud. I looked into the sun and asked it to push back the tears at the edge of my eyelids. "That's my story Doctor. What's yours?"

"I - " He sighed heavily and turned to look into the sun as well. "Nothing I can say will compare to that."

I laughed, as one tear made it's way down my face. "Yeah, right. You're the last of your race, and you won't tell me your name or where you're from. I'm sure you have your sorrows, Doctor."

"I've lost my family, yeah. My children. And I've done so much I regret. I tell myself that I keep going for them but..." He looked away, as if he continued something awful might happen if he finished that sentence.

"You keep going so you don't have time to remember." I filled in.

"I've never made another person. Being a mother... I'll never be able to do that."

"I can't imagine it's much different being a father." I offered.

"I suppose. I can relate to having to make a horrible decision. I've made so many of them..."

"Yeah, and we both keep running... What else is there?"

"What else indeed." The Doctor turned away from the sea and leaned against the railing.

"But why? Don't you ever think about just stopping? Ending it all. Just, letting go?"

He turned to me serious and stern. "Don't ever talk like that. I don't want to ever hear you say that." He took one hand out of his pocket and took my chin in his hand. "You are so young, Edie Marshall. You have so much living to do."

I searched his eyes, wondering how I should - how I could respond to that. I was sure he'd thought about it, from the sympathetic edge to his gaze. "Right," I said softly. "We just..."

"Keep running." He finished with a heavy sigh.

* * *

><p>Captain Jack Harkness was less of a Captain and more of a Ken doll. He winked at me as the Doctor introduced me, making me nauseous. Being with Jack and the Doctor in a restaurant was awkward. Like being with old friends who had once fought over a woman. Jack kept finding opportunities to touch me as we ate, and I kept ignoring him. The Doctor was not oblivious to Jack's attempted advances, telling him repeatedly to stop, though the request always fell on deaf ears.<p>

"You get used to him." The Doctor leaned into whisper, as Jack flirted with our waitress, and she let him. What surprised me more than anything was not Jack's obvious attempts to flirt with the Doctor himself, but that the Doctor was flirting back, albeit jokingly. I excused myself to use the bathroom. On the way back to the table, I heard my name and hid behind a pillar close to eavesdrop on the conversation. I don't know what was said while I was gone, but I knew it was about me.

"You've only just met her." Jack was saying. "And Rose..."

"I know! It scares me, Jack. She scares me. With Rose it was fun and cheating death and she was so young... This one is just... so old."

"She's not OLD," Jack protested. "She's mature and damn hot."

"There's something about her, Jack..." The Doctor ran his hand through his hair, making it spike crazily. "Something so familiar."

Jack gave the Doctor a sideways look. "You don't think she's?"

"No! No, no, no. Can't be. I'd know. Something in her makes me want to... I dunno, She's just thrilling, Jack. TARDIS seems to have taken a shine to her."

"Since when does a simple human woman thrill you? Even Rose couldn't get through those walls, Doctor. God knows we both tried." Jack winked as he raised his glass to his lips.

The Doctor ignored him. "I get the feeling she can read the scanner, Jack."

Jack choked on his drink. "How do you mean? How is that possible?"

"It shouldn't be possible." The Doctor ran his hand nervously through his hair. "At least not the parts in Gallifreyan." He mumbled.

I rounded the corner and put on a straight face. If he was worried, I was worried. Both Jack and the Doctor gave me big smiles as I sat down.

"So, Edie," Jack began conversationally, "Where in the states are you from?"

"Good old New York City. But I'm not too far from home, actually." I sipped my drink.

"How do you mean?" Two sets of male eyebrows creased.

"My mum's from Swansea, actually. I was born right here in Wales Royal hospital. Went stateside before my first birthday."

I saw the Doctor and Jack exchange a nervous glance.

"What?"

The men were quiet for a moment.

"That's a new bit of information." The Doctor sat back in his chair and regarded me with suspicion.

"Interesting," said Jack. "Born on the rift."

I shook my head in confusion.

"There is a rift in time and space running right under this city." The Doctor explained. "Strange coincidence."

"How so?"

Jack shot me his thousand-watt smile. "There's just something about you, Edie Marshal. Friend of an old companion of the Doctor's, born on the rift, taking all this in stride."

"Odd indeed." The Doctor agreed.

I looked from one to the other. "I'm not sure what you want me to say. I'm sure either of you could find out everything there is to know about me."

"And we will." Jack was dead serious, his mirth erased.

* * *

><p>After our tense dinner, we walked past the shops that were just beginning to close for the night. My companions were slightly ahead of me, talking like old school buddies. The smell of leather and patchouli hit me as we neared the music store and I stopped. Through the window I saw a small box, something I had been looking for. I could only call out to them as I ducked inside. They must have heard me, as they followed me inside a few seconds later.<p>

It was poorly lit and crammed with instruments, mostly fiddles and Welsh drums aimed at tourists. I picked up the BOSS RC-50 looper and set it on the counter. It was ridiculously expensive and I had to have it. But when I saw the guitar behind the counter, I knew it too, had to be mine. Jack coaxed the shopkeeper into letting me try it out, even though they were closing. Tuning only took a hot second, but as I tuned it, the Doctor became increasingly agitated; Jack became increasingly amused. She had mother of pearl inlays and bone tuning knobs and bridge. It had a dark finish and fit against my hip as if it was made for me. In my clearest voice, meeting the Doctor's eyes as Jack watched, I played and I sang.

"Sail away with me honey  
>I put my heart in your hand<br>Sail away with me honey, now, now, now  
>Sail away with me, what will be will be<br>I want to hold you now, now, now

Crazy skies are wild above me now  
>Winter howling in my face<br>And everything I held so dear  
>Disappeared without a trace<p>

Through all the times I tasted love  
>Never knew quite what I had<br>Little darling if you hear me now  
>Never needed you so bad<br>Spinning round my head

Sail away with me honey  
>I put my heart in your hand<br>Sail away with me honey, now, now, now  
>Sail away with me, what will be will be<br>I want to hold you now, now, now

I've been talking drunken gibberish  
>Falling in and out of bars<br>Trying to get some explanation here  
>For the way some people are<br>How did I come so far?

Sail away with me honey  
>I put my heart in your hand<br>Sail away with me honey, now, now, now  
>Sail away with me, what will be will be<br>I want to hold you now, now, now

It will break me up if you put me down...

Sail away with me honey  
>I put my heart in your hand<br>Sail away with me honey, now, now, now  
>Sail away with me, what will be will be<br>I want to hold you now, now, now"

As I played the last bar, I saw Jack watching with awe and the Doctor watching me with fascination and something else. His brown eyes were huge and damp. He swallowed thickly as Jack broke the silence with applause, joined by the shopkeeper and several people who had poked their heads inside as I played. I had hoped, with every word and every chord, that the Doctor would hear my gratitude for him and the short time we had spent together so far.

"You are amazing!" Jack hugged me as I pulled the instrument from around myself. I felt my face grow hot.

"I'll take it." I set the guitar next to the till. The Doctor simply watched me.

As I paid a very stunned shopkeeper for the horrendously expensive instruments, I turned to the Doctor,

"What'd'ya think? TARDIS could use some music, yeah?" I saw his reading the box next to the guitar. "Three hour, 7 stack loop set-up. Phantom mic input, USB capable. Pretty, huh?"

"Yeah. Brilliant." His voice was thick and his smile sparkling.

"Watch out, Edie. All that geek talk is *hot*." Jack nudged me and eyed the Doctor and I.

The heat in my face stayed as we left the shop, hand in hand.

* * *

><p>I let Jack carry the guitar back to Torchwood for me. I wasn't letting go of my new toy. They dropped me off at the TARDIS, so that I could get settled. "Find yourself a proper bedroom." The Doctor urged me to get acquainted with the ship while he went down to Torchwood to gather a few items Jack didn't feel safe keeping in his possession.<p>

From what I had been told, the TARDIS would give me as much space as I needed. I didn't need much. Not far from the control room I found a room with a large, soft bed, a desk and an attached bathroom. Above the desk was a screen on the wall, which, as I suspected, would hook up to my computer. I arranged the few things I had brought with me on the desk, gave the guitar it's own spot in a corner and went back to the control room.

The whole room hummed comfortingly. I walked around the console, trying hard not to give into the temptation to pull a lever or flip a switch. Here and there was chicken scratch writing etched into the console. As I looked at it, the Arabic-looking letters rose up and came into focus, and I could read them. They were nothing of consequence, Up, Down, Plotter, that sort of thing. And it wasn't on every panel. I made my way around to the computer screen and saw the circular writing there. It too rose up, as if it was coming into focus and I could read it. "Refuel Complete in 12 hours, 43 minutes." I read aloud.

"How?" The Doctor's voice made me jump. He dumped a large army-style duffle next to the door and approached me cautiously.

"You scared the crap out of me!" I gave a nervous laugh. "What do you mean? How can I read this?"

"Yes. How is that possible?" He entered my personal space and looked into my eyes, pushing me against the console railing. I felt like an insect under a microscope.

"I - I don't know!" I tried to slide away, but he put a hand on the railing on either side of me.

"The TARDIS will translate any language except Gallifreyan. Why can you read it? What are you Edie Marshal?"

"Excuse me?" I was getting flustered with him being so close, I didn't like being studied.

"Why did Martha bring me to you? What does this mean?"

"You were still so ill. You wouldn't regenerate or fix yourself or whatever it is you do." I was starting to panic. I didn't know this man. I only trusted him as far as Martha had given me cause to and the short time we had spent together thus far. "You scared her. Martha. Like you're scaring me now." I whispered.

Something changed in his demeanor; his face softened and his body relaxed. He stepped back and let me past him. "I'm sorry, Edie. This shouldn't be happening. I don't understand it. But until I do, I suppose it's safest if you're with me." He sighed, resigned, and took off his coat, throwing it onto a forked column. "Right then!" He yelled and flashed a smile. "A tour!" He held out his hand and despite my fear, I took it. He pulled me into the depths of the TARDIS, to show me the more useful rooms.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N I can't vouch for the PG rating of anything after this chapter. Drop a line and say hey; let me know you're reading!**

My nightmares returned in Cardiff. After spending the better part of the evening exploring the TARDIS and a late night poker game with Torchwood 3, I fell asleep on top of my bed in my clothes, and didn't expect to dream. The nightmare's backdrop varied from dream to dream, but it always ended the same. Marcus holding Samantha and Ruby and falling from a precipice, wrenched out of my arms by some unseen force. Tall building, mountain top, emergency exit of an airplane, but always me, watching them fall. I would look down and see their broken bodies below. Their eyes, my children's eyes, looking up at me and asking _"why?"_. My husband's face asking a different question: _"Why do you get to live?" _I try to follow them into the abyss, but I cannot fall and I cannot jump.

I can only scream.

On the TARDIS, in Cardiff, it began. Running in place, getting nowhere, as my family called out for help as they fell. I screamed for my children, my babies. As the agony threatened to overwhelm me, the sky turned to black, dotted with impossibly bright blue. I watched the blue swirl into numbers and letters and symbols and wrap around me like a net as I ran to the edge of drop. I tried to jump, but I was wrapped in a blue warmth, like a blanket, I couldn't stop screaming though, even as I felt the warmth of the figures touch my mind and a gentle hum begin to sing in my head. I still woke drenched in sweat, stifling a scream.

I didn't know then why the dream had changed.

* * *

><p>We left Cardiff on a Sunday. Jack's goodbye hug lingered too long and his salute to the Doctor was returned with a blush and a stiff nod. Entering the TARDIS, I felt at home – the first time I had felt at home since… I shook the thought away as the Doctor tossed his coat over a piece of coral and I hung mine neatly on the coat rack near the door.<p>

"To the vortex!" The Doctor began his manic dance around the console, a child-like grin on his face.

"What? No alien planets or spaceships?" I leaned against the console railing, breaking his rhythm.

"It's a Sunday! I never land on Sundays. Sundays are boring." He was dead serious. He reached around me and pulled a lever.

"Really? We could have stayed in Cardiff."

"Nah!" He scoffed. "Shops are closed, Church is on and all that. I don't like the way Jack looked at you…"

I had to laugh. "Doctor, are you jealous?" I began following him around the console. He was avoiding looking directly at me.

"No. Not jealous. Not me. What do I have to me jealous of? Look at me." He straightened his tie arrogantly. I couldn't help but giggle.

"Ok, right." I let the issue drop. We stopped in front of the computer screen. "Why don't we go here then?" I pointed to an item on a list on the screen. "Won't have to land."

The Doctor looked from the screen to me and back to the screen.

"Crab nebula?" He asked when he could form a sentence.

"Yeah. 1054 Supernova, right?"

"How? You want to see – how in the HELL?"

We both felt it then. The mental equivalent of a chuckle moved through the both of us.

"You! I should have known!" The Doctor flipped a switch angrily, gesturing to the undulating time rotor.

"What?" I was both amused and a little angry, wishing someone would let me in on the joke.

"The TARDIS. She thinks it's funny. She's translating for you. She shouldn't."

He fiddled, pushed buttons, twisted knobs.

"Really?" I sat down on the jump seat. "I thought the ship translated everything."

"Nope. It's never translated Gallifreyan before. It shouldn't." Tortoiseshell glasses were donned as the Doctor began typing furiously.

"Wow. I feel so, special!" I chuckled. "But seriously, why is it translating it for me?"

"I don't know – OW!" The console sparked and the ship rocked. "What? Stop that!" He picked up the mallet and banged on the console. "Behave!"

The ship rocked violently in admonishment. I couldn't help but giggle watching the well-dressed madman before me as he began his frantic dance again.

"I think the TARDIS is trying to tell us something!"

He stopped short and considered my words carefully. The ride evened out considerably.

"See?" I gestured to the console. "She wants you to listen."

His face was a mask of shock and surprise. "Oh-kay." He drew out, thinking. "What, exactly, do you think she's trying to say?" He moved around the console to the computer screen. I moved behind him. Repeated over and over on the screen in the Cryllic text I knew to be Gallifreyan:

Crab Nebula, Supernova, 1054

Crab Nebula, Supernova, 1054

Crab Nebula, Supernova, 1054

Crab Nebula, Supernova, 1054

A grin crept over the Doctor's face as he turned to look at me, eyebrows raised.

"I guess we have our destination."

* * *

><p>We sat in the doorway of the TARDIS, me wrapped in the quilt, the Doctor in his coat, side by side, legs swinging into nothingness. Both her doors were open as we watched the event horizon unfold before us.<p>

"The birth of what will become New Earth. The Earth's sun expands, the human race has moved on, colonizing the cosmos." His voice was breathy and quiet. "One star, right here, goes supernova and it creates the Crab Pulsar, well, PSR B0531+21, and planets capable of sustaining human life."

I leaned heavily against him, taking in the unbelievable sight above, below and around us. "What's that star?" I lean ever closer and point to a shining globe of light far to our left.

"Zeta Tauri." He smiled and took my hand in both of his, keeping it held firmly in his lap. "You can see that star from Earth, you know? Well, you saw the Supernova in 1054AD, hence the name. We're about 6500 years before the Chinese see a bright flash in the constellation of Taurus."

I hum a reply. I can barely speak, I am so enthralled.

"Supernova in 3,2,1…"

The entire cosmos flashes white for a moment, blinding us both. I raise my arm to shield my eyes, but the Doctor continues to look into the Supernova. The flash subsides and the view has changed. The universe is a swirl of colors, oil on dark water and clouds of gas.

"It was… silent." I say in wonder.

"Nothing to for the vibration to bounce off of." He grins with boyish glee.

"And that new pulsar is only a few kilometers across, rotating every, what, 45 seconds?" I ask sheepishly.

The Doctor's grin widens and he looks into my eyes. "Very nice! Yes, well, every 31.47 seconds, to be precise. You continue to amaze me, Edie Marshal!"

We sit in companionable silence for awhile, watching the stars and gas swirl around us.

"I've seen it." The Doctor begins quietly. "The Earth's death."

"You were there?" It is a rare moment when he offers a memory. I tread softly.

"I took my friend there. Rose. Our first trip together. We were too busy saving our own lives to see it go." His eyes grew sad, even as he smiled at the memory.

"What was she like?"

The Doctor sighed heavily. Perhaps he thought I'd want to know who she was, where she was, why she wasn't still with him. Now, though, watching a tiny piece of the universe be born, none of it mattered. That it brought back the memory of her, I knew she must have been special. Sitting in his armor, I was waiting for him to decline, to change the subject. But instead, he swallowed hard and began to speak.

"She was. She was brilliant. She had this long blonde hair and wore this pink lip gloss. My pink and yellow human." He chuckled. "Oh, she was whip smart, eyes open all the time. Nothing got past her. People took her for granted. Never take Rose Tyler for granted. She would always say the right thing, when I needed her to. She would spark something." He swallowed hard again. "She sparked something in me." He looked out into the cosmos, as if seeing her there. "Gone now." He sighed heavily.

I watched him. Simply watched him remember her. His eyes were a reflection of the stars, the love on his face a more beautiful sight than the newborn Crab Nebula.

"You loved her." I stated simply. I looked away, out to the universe and let myself feel the empty space where my husband once was.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "I did. Never told her properly."

"We never do." I gave a tiny laugh. "There's always more we could say."

I laid my head on his shoulder and hooked one ankle around his.

He kept my hand in one of his, cool, but strong and reassuring. The other arm went around my shoulders and tucked the quilt around me. It lingered there, fingers caught in my curls.

If we were honest, we would both say we felt the TARDIS sigh, as we watched the bones of New Earth be born.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: It's gonna get hot... Please leave feedback, or at least a wave, let me know if anyone is reading! The song is Coldplay's _See You Soon_.**

* * *

><p>We had been headed for it for awhile. He would linger too long as we embraced, stand in my personal space too often. His favorite was getting me between the console and himself, stopping as he performed the manic dance he did as he took the TARDIS into the vortex. I would seek him out late at night when I couldn't sleep, touch him whenever the opportunity arose. Narrow escapes and saving any being who was humble enough to ask for help were punctuated by Sundays in orbit around a celestial event of my choosing. Afterwards, we would often retreat to our own worlds, having had our hearts quieted by each other's presence. I would sit down with my guitar and the Doctor would retreat deeper into the TARDIS, deep in thought.<p>

That day I had picked O Herschel 36, the central star of the Lagoon Nebula, where we could see it light up an area called The Hourglass. It's heat against the cool gas clouds cause interstellar tornadoes, the Doctor explained, as I tuned my guitar. The quilt was across my legs, dangling into the nothingness below, and the Doctor faced me, his back against the frame of the TARDIS doors.

"What are you going to play?" He asked softly. He was wearing only his dress shirt, jumper and tie; I rarely saw him without his jacket. His shoes were untied and he looked very much like a child, watching the constellation of Sagittarius swirl around us.

"I've been working on this for awhile." I grinned. I plugged the cable that snaked up the ramp into my guitar and began to play.

"See you lost your trust and you never should have, you never should have.  
>Don't break your back if you ever see this.<br>Don't answer that.  
>In a bullet proof vest with the windows all closed<br>I'll be doing my best  
>I'll see you soon.<p>

In a telescope lens when all you want is friends  
>I'll see you soon.<br>See, they came for you they came snapping at your heels,  
>they came snapping at your heels.<br>Don't break your back if you ever see this.  
>Don't answer that.<p>

In a bullet proof vest with the windows all closed  
>I'll be doing my best<br>I'll see you soon.  
>In a telescope lens when all you want is friends<br>I'll see you soon.

You lost your trust  
>You lost your trust<br>No don't lose your trust  
>No don't lose your trust"<p>

As I sang, he tried not to catch my eye, but I kept my green gaze fixed on his face. He finally turned to me, shaking his head in disbelief as I ended the song. I leaned over and kissed his cheek, letting my eyelashes fall against his. His skin was cool against my lips, even though I could see the beginning of a blush beneath his freckles.

"That song is for you." I took his hand in mine.

I didn't expect his returned kiss, falling just at the corner of my mouth. "Thank you." He whispered, and brought our hands to his lips to kiss my fingers.

I couldn't breathe. His eyes met mine, and I swear my heart stopped. He leaned closer and pressed a sweet, lingering, yet chaste, kiss on my lips. I didn't even have time to close my eyes before he was pulling away.

I bowed my head, letting my hair hide my own blush and looked out into the stars. He sat back against the frame of the door.

"Edie, do you fancy seeing a film?"

The question threw me for a loop. "Ah. Sure?"

* * *

><p>I fell asleep watching Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. (I've still never made it all the way through that film.) We made dinner and ate horrible junk food and talked while it played. The cinema room was much smaller than I thought the TARDIS would have had, but it was as gorgeous as the rest of the ship. We sat on a deep sofa with a huge footstool that we pulled up, so we could stretch out as if in a pickup at a drive-in. After weeks of running for our lives, not knowing if we'd survive to see another sunrise, being in a quiet room, safe from the universe was too peaceful. I fell asleep halfway through, wrapped in the quilt, hugging a cushion.<p>

I dreamt of my family, falling slowly away from me, as I screamed. No sooner had they passed from view, a calming blue net made of number and figures enveloped me. It couldn't stop the agony though. It couldn't stop the screams.

"Edie! Edith! I've got you. I've got you. Open your eyes. I'm here." The Doctor's eyes were the first thing I saw as I came to. I was breathless and could taste sweat. I could see my own eyes reflected in his, wild and dilated. "You're ok." He shushed me like a child, pushing my hair away from my hot face. I let him pull me up into his arms as I sobbed.

"I'm sorry." I couldn't meet his gaze as I calmed. The only light in the room came from the still glow of credits on the screen.

"Nightmares. How long have you had them?" He put his hand to my forehead and took my pulse.

"Since it happened." My words were but a suggestion of speech on my breath.

"That long? " He had his glasses on and was reaching for the sonic screwdriver.

"Why?" I was deeply embarrassed, and he seemed not to notice.

He waved the sonic screwdriver's blue light over me. "Can I see?" He looked at me over his glasses and took my chin in his hand.

"See? How? How can you see my dreams? You don't want to see my dreams." I pulled away and sat with my back to him. I curled in on myself, hoping to end the conversation and forget the entire episode.

He rubbed my back like I would a child. "I'm scared Edie." He sighed. "You were talking. You were – "

"What was I saying?"

"Well. I think it was the TARDIS base code."

* * *

><p>The gallery opening was like nothing I had ever seen. 23rd Century Earth wasn't much different than I had expected, but there was a greater divide between the haves and the have-nots. The Doctor found a tray of nibbles immediately upon entering, gazing around in boyish delight. I couldn't help but notice our reflection in a mirrored wall as we stood at the bar together, he in his unlucky tuxedo and me in a 1930's cocktail dress. The sheer grey silk and lace made the color of my hair seem an even deeper shade of red. I almost didn't recognize the stunning couple in the mirror.<p>

"Keep your eyes peeled." The Doctor twirled a toothpick in his mouth and spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone.

"Right-O inspector!" I gave him my best Brooklyn journalist accent. We shared a grin and continued scanning the crowd.

I had no idea what led us here, but the Doctor had said it would be a quick trip. We applauded appropriately as the guests of honor spoke and the museum's new exhibit opened. As the well-dressed crowd pressed into the exhibit, I felt the Doctor grab my hand.

"Oh no." He breathed. I looked ahead to see two ushers handing out flashing silver-metal earpieces. "For the audio tour." They said with a smile.

"What is it, Doctor?" I turned to see his face ashen with fear and held his hand a little tigher.

"Don't put those things in your ears." He leaned down to whisper.

We took the earpieces with forced smiles and entered the exhibit. A short speech, polite applause and the entire crown was fitting them into their ears. Soon, over 300 people had flashing blue lights coming from the sides of their heads. The Doctor worked, hidden between me and a small table, to disable the earpieces we had been given with the sonic screwdriver.

I smiled and pretended to be enjoying myself as he worked, asking through clenched teeth, "What is going on?"

"Cybermen. These things will turn everyone here into zombies. Somewhere in this museum they are waiting to convert these people into Cybermen." I felt myself pale at his hissed explanation. I had treated the wounded and the partially converted after the Canary Wharf incident. It had been a blood bath, and as I looked over the crowd, the fear continued to rise as I imagined these unknowing people covered in blood, limbs and brains in various states of removal.

"What do we do?" I turned to the Doctor as he turned off the sonic screwdriver and pocketed it.

"We need to find where the signal for these things are coming from and shut it down. Then we need to find the Cybermen."

We placed an earpieces on our ears. They were now effectively dead except for the blinking blue light. Taking my hand in his, we moved quickly through the crowd to find the source of the signal. As we were about to exit the exhibit, the wide eyes of the usher at the door caught my eye. Both of us turned to see that every guest had frozen on the spot. The room was silent as 300 people turned toward us in unison.

"RUN!" We bolted out of the room and into the halls of the museum.

* * *

><p>Despite our efforts, every guest at the exhibit opening perished. By the time the Doctor yelled run, their minds had been burned away. The earpieces had been poorly reconditioned.<p>

We found a relic from Canary Wharf that had been, regretfully, restored. We found the curator in the research laboratory trying to shut down the transmitter, while the screams of his colleagues echoed throughout the whole of the lower floors. Three Cybermen, nearly completely converted, had been activated. One had still been in the conversion chamber, and the other two had been able to bring it back online.

The Doctor let me spill my rage and disgust on the errant curator as he worked at shutting down the conversion chamber. He overloaded the circuits and effectively turned it into an electrocution chamber, ending the life of the poor soul screaming inside.

"Edie! I can't condone that. We can't save these people, but I can't have you killing anyone else." He had grabbed my arm as I went to swing at the cowering curator.

"Son of a BITCH!" I kicked the man in front of me, still blind with rage.

"You – pull the fuses out of that machine, get that signal disabled." He pointed at the curator, "Edie, go up to the security desk and lock this place down. Get those ushers out of that bathroom and have them call the authorities." His eyes were dark and angry behind his glasses, his voice uncharacteristically sharp.

Before I could walk away, I took one final swing at the back of the curator's head.

* * *

><p>We were lucky, in the end, that more people hadn't been converted. Yes, over 300 people lost their lives, but they died as human beings, not metal zombie monsters, like so many others.<p>

I stormed through the TARDIS doors after leaving the police questioning the ushers and watching the curator be led away, weeping.

"How stupid! How fucking stupid!" I threw down my bag at the base of the console in disgust. "Human beings just make me SICK."

The Doctor let me rage as he calmly took the ship as far away from 23rd Century Earth as possible. Probably to save it from my wrath. I stomped off to my room. I couldn't face the Doctor, or anyone at that moment.

That night, my nightmare took a sickening twist. A Cyberman led my children away from me as two more held me back from them. I heard their screams as the conversion chamber door closed. Again, a blanket of warm blue numbers and figures enveloped me and soothed me out of my nightmare. But as I woke, it was the Doctor who had his arms around me, stroking the sweat-soaked hair from my face.

"Edie, please let me see." His old eyes begged to understand what was happening in my mind. I could only nod in response. In the dim light of my room, his cool, gentle hands stilled my aching head. He pressed his forehead against mine and saw. I only showed him my dream, and no more. I had seen him look into the minds of other people and knew well how to put up a door in my mind. When his eyes opened and looked into mine, his connection broke. My composure broke as well and I let myself cry to sleep as he held me. At some point I was aware of strong arms around me and the sound of the TARDIS turning the music on through my computer. I heard the buzz of the sonic screwdriver, the music cut off, and I let sleep take me completely.

The Doctor was still there when I woke. One arm held me against him as the other turned the pages of a book. I watched him for a moment, my head tucked under his chin. I could see his chest rise and fall and smell his skin; I could have turned my head and kissed his unshaven jaw. I stretched out along his body and pressed my own along his side. I was still dressed in the gown I had worn the night before and my hair was all around us. I let him notice I was awake and expected him to speak. Instead, he set the book down behind him and turned toward me. Without a word, he slid down until we were face to face and gave me a sweet grin. The urge to press my lips to his was overwhelming, but if I had, I would have missed his eyes looking into my own like he could see into me completely. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought he was trying to look into my mind. Our legs were entwined as we lay on my bed, his hand caressing my face. But for the fact we were both fully clothed, our bodies were pressed against one another in the most intimate fashion.

A thousand things went through my mind, but I simply lay there. Could he feel my desire against him, could he feel the butterflies in my belly as it pressed against his? Why did he always smell like cloves and coriander and leather, even after hours of running? How hard would I have to pull to break the buttons on this shirt, still so many layers from feeling his heartbeats against mine? I let my fingers, so much warmer than his skin, rest in the hollow of his throat.

Oh how I wanted him to grab me and lift my leg over his hip and kiss me until I couldn't breath. Chancing that he might see what was in my dizzy head, I imagined pushing my hands into his maze of hair and pulling his lips to my breasts. I projected my desire to feel his hand on the back of my bare thigh, pushing away the layers of silk and lace as it moved higher.

"How are you doing this?" His words were but a ghost on his lips. We still had not moved and yet, his eyes told me he had seen everything I showed him. I released the breath I didn't know I had been holding and his eyes slipped to my cleavage pressed against his dress shirt. I urged him, with my mind, to kiss me there and bury his face in the bodice of my dress. He looked back up into my eyes and heard a moan that had not escaped his lips. His mind was aching to do all the things I had asked of him. I could feel the restraint of his mind on his body as he turned over on to me.

His lithe body was completely pressed onto mine, and he held my wrists on either side of my head. I was at his mercy. Even as he didn't need to breathe, he let a sigh escape as he kissed my forehead. In one deft movement, he rolled off me, stood and left my room.

* * *

><p>Like so many things unsaid, we listed our moment in my bed among the things we didn't speak of. Our crazy continued like it always had, even though the tension hung in the air like fog.<p>

* * *

><p>"Wait, you fly a machine built for six, all by yourself?" I chuckled. "No wonder you look like such a maniac when you're flying this thing!"<p>

"Oi! It's not a thing, it's my TARDIS." The Doctor responded with a pout.

"And she is gorgeous!" I elicited a proud grin. The doctor stroked the console like one might caress a lover. I rolled my eyes. "Anyway..."

"Right. What were you saying?" He shook himself out of his reverie.

"I was asking if you would teach me to fly the TARDIS."

He balked for a moment. I couldn't tell if he was angry or flattered or just plain confused as to why I would want to work his time machine. A hundred emotions crossed his face like a flip book. Bewilderment, anger, confusion, acceptance, selfishness, joy, love.

"Just one panel, Doctor. Please?" I sidled up to him and put an arm around his waist. I pressed my head against his shoulder and looked up at him with my prettiest pout. He glanced down at me, and he had wiped his face of emotion for the TARDIS, now he was looking at me accusingly. "Come on," I straightened up and wedged myself between the Doctor and the console, forcing him to look at me. "She's a sentient machine who has been teaching me your language! Do you really think she would let me do something wrong, or hurt her or something?"

Our proximity was thrilling and I could see the war on the Doctor's face. I knew he was working out several things at once: why I wanted to learn to fly his ship, what the best teaching method would be, why I was wearing one of his dress shirts, why said shirt was only half buttoned, would the TARDIS let me fly her?

"Sapient." He said curtly.

"What?"

"The TARDIS. This ship is sapient, which means, she can make judgements based on past experience and calculated outcomes. To be sentient, the TARDIS would have to be self-aware. There's been debate for eons about whether or not a TARDIS matrix is actually aware of itself or whether it provides the illusion of sentience by it's ability to protect itself and it's occupants based on probability of harm. Which is a fascinating branch of science, actually - "

"Doctor!" I was getting breathless just listening to him, and he had barely begun his tirade.

"What?" His eyes cleared, and again, our proximity unnerved him. He took a step back from me.

"Let's just say, either sapient or sentient, the TARDIS knows what she's doing."

He crossed his arms, thinking.

"And let's assume she *wants* me to know the basecode, wants me to know Gallifreyan, wants me to be safe. Won't she tell us if she doesn't want me to fly her?"

The Doctor was staring at the floor, where the TARDIS matrix rose up to meet the console, arms crossed defensively. I put myself back in his personal space and forced him to meet my eyes.

"But if you don't want me to, it's OK to say."

That must have hit a chord. He pulled me into a rib crushing hug and buried his nose in my hair. I returned the hug and let the tangy smell of his suit and skin be a comfort.

"I know this is scary. I don't want to take anything away from you, Doctor. This TARDIS and this life will always be yours alone. I made a promise to be here for you, and I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do." I pulled away and took his face in my hands as I would a child. "OK?"

"Alone." He swallowed hard. "Right." He jumped away, grabbing my hand. "An astrolabe is a navigation tool, used by sailers since, well, forever. This astrolabe not only shows where we are in relation to other astral bodies, but in time as well. It will be your responsibility to - " I planted a big kiss on his jabbering gob, eliciting a huge grin.

"Thank you, Doctor!"

* * *

><p>I was well aware that the Doctor often forgot I was 40 year old woman. He could see my quick mind and my years of academic and world experience. He caught my wit and my dry humor. We were very much in tune and in sync with each other, especially when we were engaged in some technological task. Learning to fly the TARDIS was no exception. He answered my every question with the enthusiasm and seriousness of a professor. He took off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves and crawled beneath the console beside me, to guide my hand as I recalibrated some of the navigation controls. There was nothing but a mentor imparting his knowledge on a willing student as he taught me to solder micro-connections within the console with the sonic screwdriver. My long red curls would tangle in his wild, spiked hair as we worked so close our foreheads touched. He thought nothing of sucking on a bionode as I held it out to him, making it easier to slide into the jack. A human man would be overcome by pheromones just from our proximity to one another. But this genius being, who was trusting me with learning the inner workings of his most beloved possession, seemed immune. Even as the Doctor and the TARDIS worked hard to help me understand concepts and mechanics that the people of Gallifrey studied for decades, I couldn't help but be a little exhilarated by his touch, his scent, his praise and his presence.<p>

While I slept, he created new ways to test me and my understanding of quantum mechanics, astrophysics, and block transfer mathematics, as well as new ways to cook with bananas (brain-food, he called it). On the days we spent teaching me how to fly the TARDIS, I went to bed exhausted, but elated. My nightmares had stopped. In their place, the TARDIS was singing equations into my head and plotting navigational courses I should know by heart.

Other times, however, it was all too obvious that my very femaleness unnerved him. Trapped in an air vent connecting a Silurian hibernaculum to Mount St. Helen in 1980, I had stripped down to shorts and a very thin tank top in the heat. I caught the Doctor looking more than once, and several times he couldn't stop himself from wiping a bead of moisture off the back of my neck. In order to keep the environmental systems from overloading, we had to vent them back into the volcano. The resulting cataclysm saved millions of Silurian lives and took several human ones in the process. Before the pyroclastic flow chased us down the mountain, he held me against himself in the wake of the shock wave. He often kept from meeting my eyes, keeping us from whatever happened _that_ morning in my bed.

* * *

><p>On Raxicoricofallipitorius, we used the psychic paper to attend an award ceremony for a female the Doctor had once known as Blon Fel Foch. She was being heralded as a purveyor of peace and good will in their treaty negotiations with neighboring planet Klom. The Doctor's maleness betrayed him in the way he caught his breath as I met him in the console room, wearing a green ball gown picked by the TARDIS, and in the way he refused to let me dance with anyone else. We were surrounded by the greasy-skinned people of Raxicoricofallipitorius and the grotesque, untouchable lumps of the Absorbalovs. A few dignitaries of other species were present, though the Doctor and I were two of the very few who wore clothes. I accepted his arm as he worked the crowd, and let him keep his hand on mine in a possessive posture for most of the night.<p>

I didn't know the traditional (read: fucking weird) dances, and the Doctor led me as best he could. We resorted to formal Earth dance steps, and he was all too eager pull me against him and hold me close to him. I wasn't exactly unwilling to let him.

As the night wound down, we wandered out onto the grounds of the compound, which were not unlike a Texan ranch. Under the light of two moons and of Klom above us, we sat on a bench and he told me about his history with Blon and how she had come to be who she was.

"The TARDIS turned her into an egg?" I couldn't help but laugh as I imagined the Doctor and his companions taking care of a helpless egg.

"Yeah. We brought her back and gave her to the hatchery. Jack wanted to keep her as a pet. She's certainly made a 180* turn from where she'd been." The Doctor's face was relaxed and happy, a rare expression for him.

"See," I said softly, "Sometimes there is a happily ever after." I patted his thigh and watched his memories play across his face.

"Yep. Sometimes people get a second chance."

"All because of you."

"No... Blon could have started over and become just as evil and selfish and vindictive as she was before. I can't take credit for this one."

"Oh yes you can! If you hadn't found her again, she would have never come back here. If it wasn't for you and Jack and Rose, she would never have had that second chance."

"Jack and Rose..." The Doctor's eyes were back in his memories. He caught me staring. "Sorry. Sorry."

"Don't ever be sorry, Doctor. If you didn't miss Rose, I don't think I could lo-... respect you." I caught myself before I uttered the word we had long ago silently agreed was off-limits. "I hope that when I go, you remember me the way you remember them."

"You're going to go?" He was caught off guard, his words close to panic.

"One day. I know I can't stay with you forever." His face softened, though with regret or understanding I couldn't tell. "I'd like to, Doctor. Oh God, how I would love to see every star up there with you. But I'm going to grow old and slow..."

"Edie, you can stay - I want you to stay, for however long you have. But I can't give you a normal human life." His eyes were showing his age and the ache for companionship. Behind his age-old longing was something new, something just for me.

I smiled up at him and took his hand. "I've had a normal life, Doctor, and it almost killed me. I can never go back to Earth and be what I was."

"Oh, but Edie, you can! You are brilliant." His awe of my simplistic human life was vast.

"No, I can't. There's only you, Doctor. Only this."

The flip book of emotions began on his face again. I brought his hand to my lips and kissed each of his knuckles as fear for my choice, relief at the end of his loneliness, concern and confusion all played on his face. I brought his hand up and held it to my chest.

"I might have to go back to my own planet and live out my life a lonely old woman, or I might die tomorrow, running with you. But some day, one day, I'll be gone and you'll live on without me. You'll have new companions and see different worlds and thats ok!" The Doctor reached up with his free hand and pushed a copper curl out of my eyes. "I'm not unrealistic, Doctor. But I am finally letting myself enjoy this life. Can I enjoy it with you? For as long as I have?"

"Oh Edie Marshal." He gave me his most brilliant happy smile. "Of course! I can't fly the TARDIS without you now!" His boyish grin found my lips and he kissed me.

At first I expected the same chaste kiss we had shared on the TARDIS two weeks before. This time however, he let go of my hand and held my jaw and pulled me closer. His other hand pressed against the thin green silk and crystal beads running down my back. The depth of his kiss was terrifying and thrilling and breathtaking. I pulled away in order to breath. I expected the apology he offered, but not the explanation.

"I'm sorry, Edie. You're just so damned beautiful in that dress." He laughed, completely without reservation.

I blushed like a teenager. "And you stopped because...?" I twined my fingers in his and pulled his arm around me.

With a smile, he kissed me again.

* * *

><p>Walking back to the TARDIS, holding my hand just like he did every time we ended a visit to a distant planet, he finally confided his fear and apprehension.<p>

"The truth is, Edie, you scare me."

"Tiny little old me?" I chuckled.

"I never saw you coming into my life. I can't see where we're going. It's like driving in fog with you."

"Afraid we're going to hit a deer?"

He laughed, "Well, yes, in a way. I can't tell the future, but I can see how timelines weave around each other. But not you." He reached up and undid his bow tie.

This little morsel of information told me a lot. Everything he had come to expect of himself and of the world was a blur when it came to me. But he had always known how finite his time with each of his companions would be, and that their lives would eventually diverge from his own. It explained why Jack Harkness scared him so, and why he kept his distance from a mere human. Where everyone else's timelines began and ended and converged with his, Jack's went on forever. It appeared that mine was completely hidden from him.

"Welcome to being human! We meet people and have no clue how they will affect our lives, how long they'll be with us. Hopefully it makes us live life with passion, but mostly we just take it for granted. You never truly know what you have until it's ripped away from you..."

"I don't know whether it's a blessing or a curse, sometimes." The big blue box came into view in a copse of trees.

"Yeah...Maybe if we knew how long we had, we'd be able to make peace with losing them before they're gone."

We stopped just outside the TARDIS. "Edie, did you ever mourn them? Your family?"

"Did you ever mourn yours?" I replied. We studied each other for a long moment before our unspoken rules surfaced and the Doctor turned away to put his key in the lock.

* * *

><p>Two days later was my birthday. 41. I was happy pretending it was any other day. The TARDIS woke me by playing music from my computer, and as I rose to turn it off, I saw the note from the Doctor. It was written in Gallifreyan in his trademark scrawl, taped to my own leather satchel.<p>

"Open me." It said simply.

I opened the worn blue flap of my bag and reached inside. The scent of flowers hit me and I dug deeper. With a gasp, I pulled out a clay pot with an enormous blue lily. I set the pot next to my bag to gaze at the flower. It's stem was held vertical by a blown glass rod, three perfect blossoms bloomed from the stem and the pot was glazed the same TARDIS blue as the petals. As I admired this unusual gift, I noticed that the flower in its pot was taller than my bag.

"How in the world..." I reached back into my bag and felt familiar items: wallet, girl stuff, lip gloss, a book. Peering inside though, I saw the corner of the quilt I had claimed as my own. I pulled and the entire quilt came out. I let out a laugh. "Bigger on the inside!" As I wrapped the quilt around me, something dropped from it's folds onto the floor.

It was a thin blue wallet. Inside was a blank slip of paper, aged like parchment. As I watched, what appeared to be hoof print materialized in front of me. I didn't know what it meant, but, my own psychic paper! I giggled and smiled into my quilt as I left my room.

I found the Doctor in the console room as usual, a very battered looking book open in front of him. He couldn't hide the glee from his face as I saw me, wrapped in the quilt.

"Happy birthday Edie Marshal!" He pulled me into a bear hug.

"You! It's beautiful, Doctor! And my bag, how did you - ?"

"Time Lord technology, my friend." He set me down and put his hands in his pockets. "The lily is from the TARDIS garden. Did you know there's a garden?"

"No! We should have a picnic!" I pulled out my own psychic paper. "But what does this mean?"

With concern the Doctor looked at the paper. "Cavalia. Haven't heard from them in years." His dark look spread into a wide grin.

"Who?"

"Oh Edie, we are going to go have an adventure!" The Doctor turned and set coordinates.

"Where are we going?" I stood there, completely confused, still in my pajamas, quilt pulled around my shoulders, holding a piece of psychic paper.

"Get dressed and pack that quilt in your bag, we're going camping." The Doctor released the handbrake and the TARDIS tilted violently, to our delight.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N Hey LURKERS! Please R/R!**

* * *

><p>Cavalia. An entire planet of horses. The TARDIS landed on an expense of lush green land that reached out to the horizon, where it met a beach that had known no human footprint. A Clydesdale and two smaller Arabians met us as we exited the ship and the Doctor spoke with them telepathically. I could smell salt on the air, as a cool wind came in from the sea, the errant curls that had fallen out of my braid whipping at my face. The Doctor broke contact with the larger animal and the two smaller ones appeared to bow before us.<p>

"Fancy a ride?" The Doctor grinned like a madman as he mounted one of the Arabians. I had never ridden bareback before and my experience with horses consisted of school trips to the petting zoo. I gingerly climbed on and before I could get comfortable, the horses took off in the direction of the sea. The world was a green blur as we sped past pastures of lush grass and groves of trees. My face flushed with the cool air and the exhilaration of riding a wild horse, bareback. The Doctor looked back at me and the look on his face was happier and more free than I had ever seen him. It was as if I had never seen him smile before that day.

The horses took us to the beach and ran along the water's edge for what seemed like forever. They brought us into the water, kicking up green foam as they pranced and played. The beasts were like children in the ocean, and if I didn't know better, I would have thought they were laughing along with us.

"This is amazing!" I called to the Doctor over the whinnies and the sound of waves crashing further along the beach.

"I know. Beautiful, isn't it?" The hem of the Doctor's coat was getting dark with seawater and our shoes were soaked through. Neither of us could have cared less at that moment.

Jumping off his horse, the Doctor pulled me off mine and threatened to pull me down into the water. The horses bayed and pranced around us, and the four of us played on the beach, chasing each other through the surf.

Breathless, we sat down in the sand, pulling off shoes and socks. I rolled up the legs of my jeans as I watched the Doctor remove several layers of his armor. In just his trousers and jumper, he was dressed as carefree as the joy on his face.

"So why are we here?" I lay back and stretched out on the sand.

"The horses need our help. One of their elders has died and they've asked us to make a funeral pyre. Not easy to chop wood when you haven't got thumbs." The Doctor wiggled his thumbs at me. I gave him a courtesy chuckle.

I sighed. I wanted nothing more than to lay on that beach forever next to the Doctor. He leaned back next to me, perhaps a little too close.

"I came here in my eighth incarnation just before the Time War began. They find me every now and again. They prefer to be left alone, mostly."

"Oh, I can't blame them, Doctor. This is... this is paradise."

Even as I said it, I knew we were in for a long day of work. Thankfully the horses were cooperative enough to let us harness them to carry some of the load as we found it, and by dusk we had built ten foot tall pyre on the beach. On top we gently lay the body of a greying stallion and watched as horses of all shapes, sizes and colors began coming down from the hills and across the fields toward the sea. Before climbing down the pyre I laid a handful of wildflowers on the fallen elder. As the other horses gathered we built a fire further down the beach. The sun set behind the hills and the sea glowed below a moon that was impossibly close.

"Bio-luminescent." The Doctor said quietly. "Organisms in the water soak up light energy from the sun which causes them to glow at night."

We waited until the second moon began to rise and lit the pyre. A cacophony of cries and whinnies from the hundreds of horses on the beach was deafening. They were wailing in sorrow. It nearly brought tears to my eyes. The Doctor took my hand in his as we looked on with reverence. The smaller moon rose higher in the sky and the horses began to prance. They were making designs in the sand, still crying.

"What's happening, Doctor?" I asked quietly. I caught my breath when I met his eyes. They were deep pools of sorrow and regret and sympathy.

"I'm so sorry, Edie. I brought you here to mourn your family. The horses of Cavalia write the names of their lost loved ones in the sand before the second tide. They believe the sea takes their souls into the horizon, into the stars." He held out a switch to me, and I was speechless. I couldn't be angry, but neither could I fathom participating. "You can do this, Edie. You need to do this." He pressed the switch into my hand and held it there until I took it. As much as I didn't want to acknowledge the pain I had been running from, neither could I pretend I didn't need to say goodbye.

I took the switch and broke it in half. "Then so do you, Doctor." I held one half out to him. His face was unreadable, I held his gaze until he took the piece of wood from me, and I walked toward the sea to meet the tide.

The water lapped at my naked feet as I wrote their names in the perfect white sand. Just behind us, the pyre burned bright and hot and before me the ocean glowed blue under two full moons. With each letter, my grief rose closer to the surface. I took my time drawing their names into the earth and a few paces down the beach, the Doctor had begun doing the same. Around me, the scent of wood and fire and earth and salt and horses stung my senses. I don't know when the tears began to fall, but as I drew the last letter of my daughter's name, I was sobbing. The tide began to come in and I fell to my knees. The glowing blue water began filling hoof prints and letters in like sandcastle moats. It spilled into the intricate swirls and circles the Doctor had drawn and began to lap at my knees. He came to me and enveloped me in his arms.

We kneeled there as the tide came in, and I could feel his tears fall into my hair. On the beach the pyre collapsed in a shower of sparks and the sorrowful dance of the horses began to quiet. That is what I saw looking back at our time there, but at the time, all I felt was a growing rage as the tide evened. The more I cried, the more frantic the caged animal of my grief tore at its restraints. I pushed against the Doctor and ran into the sea, wailing, as if the water was dragging my family out of my grasp. I wanted to follow them down into the airless glowing grave and feel the salt burn my lungs as I drowned. Knee deep in blue surf I raged, begged the sky to take me in trade. I cursed God, I cursed myself and I begged my family's forgiveness that I was left to live. It was as if I could finally move inside my nightmare.

The Doctor caught me before the gravity of the doubled tide could pull me out to sea. He held my face in his hands and pressed a low, soothing song into my head. When my sobs ebbed to hitched breath he pulled me to him and kissed me.

I could taste his tears despite being in the ocean. His kiss was hard and desperate and full of want. He left the song in my head as he pulled me against him, and moved our kiss beyond chaste comfort.

"Can you hear it, Edie? Can you hear the horses singing?" We were both breathless, lips and eyes swollen.

"What are they saying?"

"It's for us, Edie. You and me. They're saying your heart is beyond mending, so I must lend you one of mine."

* * *

><p>The horses began to move away from the beach and the pyre had collapsed to half it's height. We went to our fire and silently peeled off our soaking clothes. The Doctor lay them in front of the fire to dry as I pulled the quilt out of my bag. Without words, we lay together and I pushed my desire into his mind as before. But this time, he replied.<p>

He kissed my forehead, each of my tired green eyes and where my eyelashes met my freckled cheeks. One arm kept me pulled close to him and the other brought my leg up over his hip. I could finally feel his chest atop his two hearts, no suit between us, pressing against my breasts. Without reservation I could let my hands tangle in his hair. I grew dizzy with the smell of him, and I felt him inhale my own scent as he pressed kisses to my collarbone. And as we let every wall we had built fall to pieces around us, he showed me his desire the same way I had shown him mine.

The picture he painted in my mind showed me as he saw me. My green eyes were full of pain and want. He longed to feel my hair trail flames down his body and to feel the swell of my womb warm against his cool hands. For months he had wished to cast aside his rules and claim me as his. I showed him how I wanted to have his weight on me again, hip pressed to hip, and to let him make me cry out his name. I wanted his hands to get lost in my hair and to feel his fingerprints on my thighs days from now.

We didn't need to speak and the only sounds on the beach were the crackle of the fire, the surf and our labored breath. As the fire died, I let him take me over the edge with him, his low growl against my ear. The song in my head had ceased and I fell asleep listening to the sounds of Cavalia and the Doctor's rhythmic breathing as he slept for the first time in weeks.

* * *

><p>Our agreement to delay physically consummating our relationship remained unspoken. While we laid our feelings and our bodies bare on that beach, we didn't want our pain to be what bound us. We left Cavalia leaden with vegetables, fruit and fish, gifts from the horses. I couldn't begin to imagine how they acquired it. It was with a heavy heart that we went through the doors of the TARDIS and back to our crazy life. As bittersweet as it was, the new openness we shared more than made up for the peace we lost less than a week later.<p>

Despite having broken down so many walls, we remained true to ourselves. Neither of us desired domesticity or lazy mornings spent in bed. I preferred the feeling of opening the TARDIS door to a new world, eyes locked on his, the thrill of anticipation heavy in the air. He could no more treat me like a girlfriend, with courting and dates and meeting the parents than I could treat him like just a lover. He still rambled on, was still oblivious while being provocative, still a boy in a 900-year-old Time Lord body. I was still the human woman with the mop of red hair who piped music through the TARDIS and danced whenever the mood struck. Now, when the Doctor made my knees weak with his tasting everything, or his high-pitched giggle, I could act on it without reservation. He could take my guitar out of my hands and pull me into an embrace whenever the desire struck him.

We didn't spend the next week in domestic bliss, but by being more **us** than either of us had been in awhile.

Three days after Cavalia I found the Doctor in the library, a place into which I had not yet ventured. I was looking for a distraction after a particularly disturbing day on Tarajii Prime and the TARDIS led me there. I had anticipated the Doctor's library to be immaculate, grand and inviting. What I found was a dark room filled from floor to ceiling with books arranged only by color. At first it appeared to be a room no bigger than a large closet, full of red volumes. Taking down an ancient volume from the shelf, I felt the wall move sideways. With a small tug, the whole shelf disappeared into the wall like a pocket door, revealing yet more red books in an even larger room. Each wall moved as if on rollers, so that the library became an ever-changing maze of books, tables, chairs, sometimes an overstuffed sofa would be tucked between two walls, occasionally a desk would appear. The books ranged from things that had been written in my lifetime and others that were apparently too old for the TARDIS to translate. Here and there were map tables overflowing with star charts and maps from planets other than my own. I was too enthralled with the room itself to wonder how I would find my way back to the door.

Coming through the green section, I found it. It was like finding a raven's treasure tucked away in shadowy corner of an attic. A chaise lounge so tired from use its legs had long been replaced with books. It had served as a bed many, many nights, a worn blanket and pillow laid out among notebooks, ancient tomes and a very moth-eaten old wool scarf made from odds and ends of different colors. Letters, diaries, a swatch of cloth here, a single earring there created a museum of trinkets set on the surrounding shelves like trophies. I sat down on the chaise and picked up a letter lying on a pile of books. I didn't open it, but held it to my face, where I could smell the light sent of candle wax from the seal and women's perfume. Surprisingly, a women's bridal garter was slipped over the base of a small lamp on the floor. As I regarded its incongruity, the wall to my right slid back and the Doctor was there, brainy specs sitting precariously on the tip of his nose.

I felt as if I had found his secret hiding spot and was immediately sorry for lingering.

"Sorry. I was looking for something to do, and the TARDIS led me here." Our eyes connected and the double entendre was not lost on either of us. Instead of the furrowed-brow response I may have received just a week ago, instead I got a welcoming grin.

"Yep. You found my little hideaway." He sat next to me, close enough that our shoulders and knees touched.

"You are quite the magpie!" I smiled at his collection affectionately. "Who is this from?" I fingered the white garter. It glittered with rhinestones.

The Doctor chuckled. "That was Donna's, actually. She took it off after we defeated the Rachnoss because she had a run in her stockings." The sadness in his eyes made me take his hand. "That over there," he pointed to a circle of gold propped up against the books on a shelf above us, "That's my souvenir medal for lighting the Olympic torch. 2012." He smiled as his eyes looked back on that day.

I let him tell me what he wanted to share and watched the memories flow over his boyish features. At some point he put away the brainy specs, when his eyes teared up for the second or third time. He had waited to long to have someone to talk to, someone who could truly understand. Not only were there trinkets from his adventures, but from his home as well. A tiny bit of wire from his tutor, Badger's, electronic components. A dead piece of TARDIS coral from his father's ship. A blade of red grass pressed in the pages of a book. As he fingered the blade of grass I could feel the longing wash off him and the fleeting thought of how much my hair reminded him of that long red grass passed from my mind to his. He caught my green eyes with his brown ones before pulling my face to his lips.

We fell asleep curled up there together, after sharing our most intimate thoughts with one another, with and without words. We could never have imagined how important our ability to slip into each others minds would be in just a few short days.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Heavy on the M, violence, disturbing scenes and adult material (read: sex) Please r/r!**

* * *

><p>Something had the TARDIS in a tractor beam. The Doctor was frantic and had made me leave my station at the console so he could attempt to break free. We were thrown around the room, sparks flew and a small fire started below the console.<p>

"What the hell was that?" I asked as we came crashing to a halt. The stillness was eerie, and the Doctor's worried glance made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

"Someone's kidnapped us." He rose from where he had fallen near the jump seat and made his way toward the door. I followed a few steps behind. Instinctively, I took the hand that reached out behind himself for mine.

I had barely stepped out of the TARDIS when I was grabbed from behind. Swung away from the Doctor, I screamed, and I could hear him calling for me. A black bag was placed over my head even as I fought, but arms stronger than my own were holding me. I could hear the Doctor's voice, though it was growing farther and farther away as I was carried off.

I never did learn much about the planet we were on. I was put in a cell that didn't appear to have a door, so small I could touch each wall when I stretched out my arms. There was a drain in the floor that let off a foul stench, and a small window in one wall. I screamed until I was hoarse and exhausted. Hours after being taken, I lay down on the cold concrete and waited, trying to keep my sanity.

My internal clock told me 12 hours had passed before anyone came to look in on me. Watery, bug-like eyes peered at me through the window.

"Please, tell me what's going on. What do you want from us?" I tried to keep my voice level and calm.

"The machine. Tell us how to get into the machine."

"The TARDIS? I... I can't tell you that. I don't know."

"You lie." The window slid closed and I was alone again.

A flood of emotions washed over me. They wanted the TARDIS, but she wasn't letting them in. The Doctor had let them keep me locked up instead of giving them his key. I was angry and sad and completely terrified. I hugged my knees closer to my chest and thanked the Doctor for whatever he had done to my satchel, and that whoever was keeping me captive let me keep it. Not knowing if I was being watched, I carefully removed a small handful of berries and ate them slowly. I had a enough food for two or three days if I was careful, but no water.

I slept, keeping my bag under my body, lest they take it. I dreamt I could hear the Doctor calling my name, that his cool hand was on my face, telling me to be brave.

Although I was asleep, the Doctor's voice was not a dream. I woke when the window opened again, and again they asked me about the machine. I begged them to let me see the Doctor, and again they closed the window without comment. I began to despair, but as I closed my eyes, I heard his voice.

"Edie, tell me you're OK. I'm here."

"I'm alright. I'm here, Doctor." I pushed the words out of my mind as hard as I could. Just as I could hear the thoughts of the TARDIS, I heard the Doctor gasp in my mind. It was a sob and a laugh that I returned with a mental cheer. Whatever had allowed us to connect so intimately before was still working.

"They want the TARDIS, Edie. The N'sarans want to reverse engineer it. They must never ever get inside that ship." His voice in my head as tinged with fear.

"I haven't told them anything, Doctor. They keep asking, but I haven't said - "

"Good. Good. Edie, are you alright? Have they hurt you? They said they would - "

"No, I'm fine. I'm OK. They haven't touched me since they brought me here." I felt his mental sigh as a physical presence around me.

"I'm going to get us out of here. I promise you."

The N'sarans weren't the brightest creatures, but they were desperate for technology. They kept me locked up, alone, for nearly two days, without food or water. My small stash of food was dangerously low and I heard from the Doctor less and less.

* * *

><p>On the second day, I woke with a start, but the room was pitch black. I panicked thinking I had somehow been blinded. In a flash of green light I was inside a car, stereo on. Rain pounded the windows and the windshield wipers were swishing with a familiar rhthym. I held my breath and ventured to look around. I was in the backseat of my husband's car, my older daughter's curly hair peaking over the headrest in front of me, my husband tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the music. Next to me, my baby slept in her car seat, her sweet breath a gentle snore. I could feel the polyester webbing of my seatbelt against my fingers and the familiar nap of the seats against my thighs. The faded scent of the air freshener swinging form the rearview mirror hung in the air.<p>

I heard the breaking glass and screaming metal on metal before the collision registered in my mind. My daughter's terror was cut short with a sickening crunch and a wet thud as a blinding headlight from the semi came through the windshield. My husband's expletive was cut short less than a second later as the other headlight passed through his body. The grill of the truck came to rest just above my baby's head, but the rest of the engine landed sickly on top of her. Glass and oil and metal and smoke filled the car. And the radio kept playing as the entire nightmare came to an abrupt halt. Before I could scream or cry or move, I noted that the rain was beginning to sparkle in my daughter's hair, as her dead eyes looked back at me from a grotesque angle.

It was as if I had been dropped on the concrete floor of my cell. My head and body ached as if I'd been in the accident. I looked up at the ceiling and wailed.

It was the torture they had promised the Doctor made real.

I screamed until I was hoarse, and then I called out for the Doctor in my mind. His answer was seething anger followed by intense sorrow. I heard no words, only felt his emotions pressing into my mind like a tap on the shoulder. Finally, I felt comfort, which slowly built up into a song, a hum in my mind like a lullaby.

I slept, a blue blanket pulled around my dreams in a loving cocoon. The TARDIS was protecting my mind, even as someone tried to hurt her.

"Edie?" My name repeated woke me. "Edie, please!" I sat up, still confined by the same concrete walls.

"Doctor?" I thought back. "I… they…" I couldn't put into words, even in my own mind, what I saw.

"I know… Me too." I put my head on my knees and hugged them tightly to me. "We have to be strong, Edie. They can't actually hurt us, not like this."

"But Doctor – I saw…"

"I know – I know what you saw, Edie. They… they made me watch." I felt the Doctor wince. "I need you to do something for me, Edie."

"Anything to make this all stop."

"We can't let them get into the TARDIS. We have to beat them at their own game, Edie. This is just hypnosis. They are going to try to use our memories to break us. We can't let them, Edie."

I took a deep breath and released it with resolve. "What do I need to do?"

* * *

><p>The next time I saw the green light, I closed my eyes and held my breath, just like the Doctor had instructed. It was like being at the top of the first drop on a rollercoaster, where you squeeze your eyes shut and wait for your stomach to drop out of your body. I smelled the air freshener and heard the radio, the rain on the car. I should even smell my daughter's shampoo and my husband's aftershave. I willed myself not to reach out to my sleeping daughter next to me as metal began to screech and my ears were filled with the sound of semi truck on flesh. Still, when I felt the cold concrete beneath my head, I couldn't help but weep.<p>

Even when I knew my captors had changed the scene I willed myself to keep my eyes shut, not to open them and see what horror they had for me. By smell and sound and touch, I knew it had something to do with the hospital.

Several times a day I was bombarded with images of my children and my family being killed, their funerals, my youngest daughter's autopsy, even the fire that consumed my parents. As they came, it became easier to shut it out. With the Doctor's calm voice in my mind, I was even able to begin to visualize other scenes.

The Doctor led me to the Torchwood 3 Hub, where Gwen Cooper and I had decimated everyone at poker. He took me to the field in Utah where we had watched Haley's Comet streak across the sky while we ate from a cheesecake with our hands. And as he put those visions in my head, I pushed back toward him, taking his mental hand and showing him things I wanted him to see. I showed him the first time I had flown the TARDIS single-handedly, from 12th Century China to a Duran Duran concert in the 1980s. Even through our telepathic connection, he expressed his disdain for the Dayglo yellow Chucks I found for him there.

We didn't speak much, as images were much easier to convey than words. Sometimes, the image he built for me was simply his arms around me, and mine around him. It was this image I held when they finally came for me, black bag over my head and took me out of my cell.

Was I about to be tortured? Killed? Had they found a way into the TARDIS? Where was the Doctor? I tried to calm myself and push down my panic as I called out to him with my mind.

"I've got you, Edie. Won't be long now." Was his soothing response.

I relaxed into the arms holding me and let them lead me away, repeating the Doctor's words in my own head.

When the black hood was removed, I was alone in what appeared to be a cafeteria. A plate of food had been set before me, and although I couldn't identify it, I was too hungry to refuse it. Shaking, I ate slowly, willing myself to keep from gorging on the food. I knew it would come right back up if I ate too quickly. I made myself take sips of water between each bite and choked down the rest when I felt my stomach begin to cramp. As I willed my body to keep the food inside, I closed my eyes and tried to reach out to the Doctor.

"Please, please tell me you're OK? I can't hear you... I can't feel you anymore." I felt, rather than heard, his response. Comfort and reassurance filled me, as if he were mentally squeezing my hand.

* * *

><p>It was another 24 hours before I found myself in a tiny, cramped pod-like structure. It was no bigger than an actual police box, with a small window looking out onto a desolate, devastated landscape. I felt as if I were inside a casket. Indeed, as I felt the pod begin to move, a voice came on from a speaker above me, informing me that I was being transported to a penal colony where I, and whoever else was on this train of coffins, would be put in stasis. I finally gave in to panic. I couldn't catch my breath, I couldn't see, and for a moment, I lost touch with reality. I was truly trapped.<p>

With a crash, and a hard lurch, the pod stopped. I caught my breath and froze. My heart leapt into my throat as one side of the pod came open with whoosh and a spray of hydrolic mist. I pressed myself against the other side of the pod, expecting to see the huge bug eyes of a N'saran. Instead, a brown trouser leg followed by the lean body of the Doctor came through the mist and climbed inside the pod.

"Hello!" He smiled weakly. He closed the pod and used the sonic screwdriver to seal us in. His face fell when he saw me. I knew my eyes must have been filled with terror. "Oh, Edie..."

I smacked him hard on the arm. My panic erupted and I couldn't keep it in any longer. He pulled me into his arms and held me like I would float away if he didn't keep me anchored. I don't know how long I cried, but as I grew calmer, I thought the Doctor was trembling as he held me. But it was me. I was shaking so badly, I could feel it reverberating through his hold on me. We had begun to move again, and we lay there a long time, until our position became uncomfortable and we shifted, resigned to a long ride.

"Doctor, I'm scared." I whispered in the near darkness.

"So am I Edie. I'm so sorry. I have a plan. Don't I always have a plan? When we get on the stasis platform, we'll be transported back to their warehouse where they're keeping the TARDIS." We lay on our sides, facing the window that provided us with a shielded view of the bleak landscape outside.

I pressed myself back against the Doctor. I couldn't keep the tears from coming, and he couldn't help but try to stem them. "This had better work, Doctor. I don't want to die on this godforsaken planet!" My voice was barely a whisper. "It's the dark... and the cell. Too small..."

"For awhile there, I thought I'd lost you." He smoothed my hair away from my face and placed a kiss on my head, behind my ear. "But you're here... we're alright." He was comforting himself. Even as I tried to calm myself, he pulled me into his arms as best he could in the position we were in, stroking my face, my neck, my arms. "We're going to be fine, Edie. I promise you." He kissed my neck beneath my ear and as I turned to question the gesture, his lips were on mine.

It was if our fear could be bled from us by the act, and it couldn't happen fast enough. His hands were everywhere at once: under my shirt, gripping my stomach, pulling me against him, in my hair and on my breasts. I reached behind and pulled his hips against mine and he pulled my leg back with one of his own. His kisses were feverish and desperate. We didn't have to say anything, and permission was without question. His long fingers brought my skirt up to my hips and found the dampness there, as I pushed myself against his erection. With one hand he reached into the collar of my shirt as he kissed and bit my lips, neck and face. With the other, he made quick work of my pants, as I attempted to pull his trousers over his hips.

With one quick and brutal thrust, he was inside me. It was neither tender, nor kind. We were both panting with need as we moved together. I gripped his thigh and willed him further into me as he rolled a nipple between his fingers. The breast in his hand heaved as I fought for breath and the heat against his other hand threatened to set him on fire. Pain and pleasure rang through me, his breath hot on my neck and ear. I fought for control of my senses and lost, reaching up to anchor my fingers in his hair as I did. When he reached his end, he thrust harder and his hand gripped my belly, as if trying to catch himself there.

We lay still for a long moment, as we caught our breath. We straightened our clothes. I drew away and turned so I could look at him. I was calmed. He was a mess. Fear and pain and regret crossed his face. He wouldn't even look at me.

"I'm sorry Edie. I'm so sorry." He pressed his forehead into my chest and let out a sob.

"Why?" I held him to me and kissed the top of his head. "I'm not sorry." The scent of sex hung heavy in the air, even as a cool stream of fresh oxygen flowed from the vents above us.

"No. No, this is so wrong. I don't do this. Not like this. Not here. This isn't me." He tried to get a hold on his emotions and failed.

"Tell me, Doctor. Tell me, why? Why is this so bad?" I brought his face level with mine. "Why can't you have this?"

"Do you really want to know?" He said through tears. "I can show you... But it will hurt."

"Like it hurts you?" I smiled at him, forgiving him in my head. He simply let out another tear. "Then I want to know."

He put his forehead against mine, and his strong hands took my head between them. He took a deep breath, and in that breath, I saw.

Yes it hurt. It hurt as much as any pain I have felt. I saw, or more appropriately, felt, his resignation as he ended his people and his planet. I felt the pain of his regeneration. But I also felt the joy he had when the blonde girl's hand was in his and the increase of his heartbeat every time he said her name. I felt his fear of Jack and Daleks and his disgust of Cybermen. I felt his jealousy and his unhindered rage. I felt the scars of Reinette and Astrid taken away so soon. He showed me a windswept beach where his heart was torn in two and how the wound was just beginning to heal before it had to be split open again. He showed me the guilt of being unable to love Martha back and his relief in a strong woman named Donna. Then, like pulling open a newly-stitched wound, Genny was ripped away from him. I felt the physical pain of being wrung out as a side effect of going to Mars and the humility of asking Martha for help. And I saw myself. Even as the pain of being alone and ending the lives of the people he loved was a constant throbbing ache, there I was, like a salve. While he wanted me to be the joy that was Rose and the camaraderie that was Donna and the faith that was Martha, I was set apart. But fear hung over his vision of me like a cloud. He wanted to walk into the storm and feel the rain that would soothe him, but he feared it would turn to acid if he let himself be taken in. He couldn't afford more scars.

His fingers left my temples and my body was still wracked with pain. I felt my tears on my cheeks and watched him survey me.

"I can't take away your pain." I said finally. "I would never want to."

"Who can?" He asked earnestly.

"All of that makes you what you are. Just as much as my pain and my happiness makes me who I am. Accept your faults, the way all of those people do. Forgive yourself. No forgiveness matters more than your own."

His face cleared as I spoke. "Edie Marshal, how are you so wise?"

I took his head in my hands as he did mine, and pressed my forehead to his. _"Mahn av chay, Navah, taygahn. Rah il choylahnay ov." _(Bring your faults to me, my love. I will heal you.)

His breath caught in his throat as I spoke to him in his own language. I caught his sob in my kiss.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: The song Edith sings is Coldplay's Yellow. All rights to all songs mentioned remain with their respective owners.**

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><p>I held him like I had held my children so long ago, his head tucked under my chin. I smoothed his dirty hair down and began humming as we moved across the desolate landscape toward an uncertain future.<p>

"Sing? Please?" He whispered.

I pulled him tighter against me and began softly.

"Look at the stars

Look how they shine for you

And everything you do

Yeah they were all yellow

I came along

I wrote a song for you

And all the things you do

And it was called yellow"

The Doctor slipped his hand under the hem of my shirt and began tracing circles lightly across the skin of my back with his long fingers. I kissed his head and continued.

"So then I took my turn

Oh what a thing to have done

And it was all yellow

Your skin

Oh yeah your skin and bones

Turn into something beautiful

You know … "

I couldn't get the next line out. The words, "I love you so" just stuck in the back of my throat. I cleared the lump there before skipping to the next verse.

"I swam across

I jumped across for you

Oh what a thing to do

Cause you were all yellow

I drew a line

I drew a line for you

Oh what a thing to do

And it was all yellow

Your skin

Oh yeah your skin and bones

Turn into something beautiful

And you know

For you I'd bleed myself dry

For you I'd bleed myself dry"

I felt the Doctor's breath on my collarbone as he kissed me there, his lips moving across the very prominent bone and up to my jaw. I wove my fingers into his hair.

"It's true

Look how they shine for you

Look how they shine for you

Look how they shine for

Look how they shine for you

Look how they shine for you

Look how they shine"

His lips had made their way up to mine and I pulled away to look into his eyes. Pain and longing and apology and something else I couldn't quite put my finger on swam beneath their surface.

"Look at the stars

Look how they shine for you

And all the things that you do."

The last note was cut short as he kissed me. It was slow and sweet, though not completely innocent as he gently pulled my lower lip into his mouth. He brought those long fingers up to tangle in my hair and caress my face. We broke apart when we felt the pod slow down.

As we pulled into the prison facility, we detangled our limbs and solidified our plan. Just before the pod opened, The Doctor brought his lips to mine in another kiss that said more than any words could and the look in his eyes as we parted sent shivers down my spine.

* * *

><p>If there was one single thing I disliked about traveling with the Doctor, it was being shot at. The transport worked, but it was rough and we landed about fifty feet from the TARDIS in the middle of twenty or so N'Sarans. As we materialized, the Doctor hit his head on a cargo container and was nearly knocked unconscious. I half carried, half dragged him toward the big blue box on the far side of the hangar while bullets rained over us. Luckily, the N'Sarans were ungainly and inaccurate with their many arms and legs.<p>

I was no stranger to carrying a person much larger than myself, having overseen the aftermath of the Battle of Canary Wharf at Royal Hope Hospital. But days with little food, even less sleep and the emotional torture we had endured was like lead in my bones. For a thin man, the Doctor was deceptively well-muscled beneath his suit and coat. Halfway to the TARDIS I fell on my knees and nearly gave up.

I hoisted the Doctor up with one final surge of energy as a laser shot whizzed past my head. "Come ON, spaceman!" The Doctor put his feet under himself and stumbled beside me, eyes glazed over.

We collapsed behind the TARDIS doors and deadlocked them. I left the Doctor gripping his head and cursing the bug-creatures as I ran up to the console and brought it into the vortex before they could lock onto it again. I slumped down to the grated floor once we were safe.

The Doctor crawled over and sat shoulder to shoulder with me. We were both grubby, panting, and our clothes hung off our bones like rags. But with a wide grin shared between us, we celebrated that we were free.

Showering, eating and sleeping. Those were my only plans for the near future. After sharing a meal in quiet companionship, we went our separate ways in silence. I had hoped the Doctor would follow me, and as he moved down the corridor, I sent him my longing, hoping he sensed how much I needed his presence. He paused a moment, leaning heavily on the wall of the TARDIS, but continued on anyway. Resolutely, I found my own room, my own shower and my own bed, where I slept for what felt like days.

I don't know what the Doctor did when he needed to unwind, but I sought refuge in a room I believe hadn't been used since his second incarnation. It was a small stage and lounge that Dean Martin would have been proud to play in. Most importantly, It had a full drum set and baby grand piano.

I started off playing the piano, but I felt restless and could keep a lyric in my head to save my life. I moved on to the drum kit where I finally opened up.

"TARDIS, can you please play Wonderwall, track 183, removing the drum track and background vocals?"

The song began with a lilting guitar portion that I knew well. Today though, I wanted to just hit something... But it wasn't enough. I pulled off my jumper, already damp with sweat. CLad only in a tanktop and jeans, I asked the ship, "Can you please play Cult of Personality, track 216, sans drums?"

As I began to play, the wall next to me lit up with old black and white newsreel footage from the 1940s. I couldn't see into the rest of the room. It gave me new energy. My braid came loose as I played and I let my sweat-soaked hair fall around me. I made a mental note that I should practice the guitar solo from this song later.

As the song ended, I mentally thanked the TARDIS for the blue-tinted jar of water she had left sitting on the piano. I downed it and pulled my hair back up tightly. Sitting back down at the drums I decided on playing one more song.

"Track 4, please, sans drums and tertiary vocals." The stage lights dimmed for a moment. I was to count off and begin. My favorite part has always been the cymbals in this song. It was unrelenting movement that made my biceps burn deliciously. I didn't miss a beat when a candle on one of the tables below me flamed up and I saw the Doctor watching me, hands clasped across his stomach as he leaned back in his chair. On the final note, I looked up at the ceiling and sighed, letting go of the last tiny bit of tension in my body. The Doctor's applause brought me out of my meditation.

"How long have you been sitting there?" I tossed the drumsticks into their bag and made my way to the front of the stage.

"No long. Well, when I say 'not long' I mean, not the whole time. Well, not completely. Well, since about the middle of Wonderwall." He responded sheepishly. He leaned against the stage as I sat down, letting my legs dangle off.

"So now you know what I do to relax." I said, wiping my brow with my discarded shirt. "What about you? Where do you go to relax Doctor?"

He considered me for a moment, before pushing off the stage. "Come on." He held out his hand in that familiar gesture I had so come to love. I took his hand and jumped down from the stage, letting him lead me out of the lounge.

It was a Turkish-style bath, a room filled with marble columns, terraced walls with benches built in and an ornate statue of a woman from which poured scented water from a large pitcher. The floor was worn blue and white tile, remarkably warm to the touch. The small entryway served as a changing room, though I could see nothing to change into. Large TARDIS-blue towels hung below a shelf obviously meant for our clothes. I recognized the scent of the water immediately, clove and coriander, book leather and something slightly musky I couldn't place. It smelled like the Doctor's skin.

He watched me survey the room from the entryway, eyes as sad and full of mirth as ever. When my eyes found his, his mouth was soon to find mine. I was stunned for a moment, pulled tight against him, one hand already impossibly tangled in loose strands of my hair, the other gripping my belt loop to pull my hips against his. He forced my mouth open with his own as he pushed me against the wall of the entry. I could only moan into him as the force of the kiss startled me.

When he finally released me, he pressed his forehead against mine, keeping his eyes closed as if afraid to look at me. It was quite clear what he wanted.

"Edie, I want..." He let out a sigh, determined to let the words out. "I want *you*, Edie." My name barely passed his lips before grabbed his tie and brought his mouth to mine once more in response. I could feel his smile against my lips.

We didn't need to speak as we made love in the pool of scented water. It was both thrilling and filled with a deep longing we both had to have someone with whom we felt we could share everything with. Until the day I die, I will never forget the deep wells of sadness and desire and, yes, love, in his eyes as he took the tie out of my hair and let it spill around us, before entering my mind. He kept his gaze locked on mine as we moved within each other's fantasies and desires, the deep, base emotions within us. While it was slow and loving, something eventually snapped and I needed to feel him lose himself inside me. We found ourselves trembling in an embrace so tight I could barely feel where I ended and he began.

It was not the feral, primal and physical expression of love I had come to expect from a man. This was something even more basic and more intimate. Anyone could have our bodies, but to let someone walk among your memories and experience your emotions was wholly different.

When we had calmed and gathered ourselves, I let him brush my hair as I sat in front of him on one of the many ledges around the bath, just beneath the surface of the water. We relaxed into the familiar banter we had come to expect from one another, even nude. I thought then that we were cresting over the brink of something unexpectedly wonderful, something that would finally release us from the pain we shared and the losses we had suffered through alone.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

* * *

><p>We were on a disabled ship with two injured Havrakian, trying in vain to patch the ship's controls to the secondary bridge with little success. The primary bridge was gone, ripped away by an errant asteroid. We had managed to contain the oxygen shell and get the pilot and copilot into the medical bay, but their nuclear storm drive system was fluctuating wildly as we began to free fall toward a small moon. The resulting catastrophe would cause a chain reaction within the small, dense planetary system and devastate the entire region.<p>

Alien physiology had never been my strong suit in college... or ever really, and I did the best patch job I could manage on the injured. I then took to running from the very scary, devastated primary bridge that was sporting a large hole where the cockpit should be and ferrying parts per Doctor's orders back to the secondary bridge. I tried not to let the threat of open space and it's cold, airless vacuum unnerve me as I pulled parts from the wreckage.

As I ran onto the secondary bridge, fusion coupling cradled in my arms, the Doctor's disheveled head popped up from inside the console.

"Where the HELL is Alonso when I need him?" He said to no one in particular.

"Who's Alonso?" I asked breathlessly.

"Long story. I'll have to introduce you sometime." He took the coupling from my arms. "Thanks." He regarded it with a frown.

"What's wrong? What do you need?" I knelt beside him.

"There's something I'm missing, Edie. What am I missing?" His hands were covered in grease and his eyes dangerous behind his brainy specs.

With a big grin that made his brow furrow even deeper, I ran my cleaner hands through his hair, tugging hard and pulling it up in as many wild tufts as I could manage. As my hands dropped to my lap, the Doctor's face cleared, and he matched my grin. His brows raised above the brainy specs.

"Recalibrate the fusion fluctuation curtain." I could almost see the lightbulb go off in his head.

I jumped up, ready to run again. "Fusion matrix manifold?" I asked.

"Oh yes!" He disappeared beneath the console again as I turned to run back to the primary bridge, my smile never leaving my face.

The pilot and copilot of the Havrak ship were grateful for their rescue, and the salvage of their ship. It turned out to be precious cargo: 50 embryos saved from their dying breeding planet.

But the next place the TARDIS landed was not so kind.

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><p>Another thing I hate - having a knife held to my throat. My mouth and throat were dry as the point of a very sharp blade bit into my neck. Waves of panic and anger were rolling off the Doctor's face as a man named Brother Krasak held me. Even though he was screaming in my ear, I barely understood what he was saying, my own ragged breath roaring in my ears as I watched several dozen grotesque bat-people flew around us.<p>

We were on a space station above New Earth, where a Mauve distress signal had lured us. From what I gathered from the raging Brother Krasah and the Doctor's own pleas, the Doctor had killed comrades of Brother Krasah before their work was finished and they were furious. I was apparently the bargaining chip they had been looking for, insisting the Doctor finish what they had started.

He wouldn't give up his TARDIS to save me, and I was sure he wouldn't give these things what they wanted this time either. But as he sat down at their computer console, and the knife eased away from my throat, I could only imagine what was going through his mind.

Hours later, watching from the Senate building of New Earth, we watched the space station break apart in a brilliant shower of sparks and flame. The Doctor kept me crushed against him until we were safely within the walls of the TARDIS and far away from New Earth.

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><p>Dear Edith,<p>

I'm having a hard time finding the words (or the time) to express myself properly, so I thought putting it down on paper would be the best way.

When we first met, I was terrified of you. I never saw you coming into my life, and I still can't see you leaving it. You are as wrong as Jack Harkness, but so very different. I can't explain it and it scares me. You know I'm not a man who admits to being scared very often. There's not much that truly scares me; I'm usually ready to let whatever happens, happen. I never expected to meet you, however.

I've been fighting the piece of me that wants to look into the future and know what's coming next. I think of all the things I've wanted to do and it always comes back to you. You are always there beside me. I have never let myself wish for too much with anyone I travel with. I can always see the end of their time with me, even if I don't know how it's going to end. I can't see an end with you, just as I couldn't see a beginning.

When I lost Rose, I could have torn apart the multiverse looking for her. But my sense of duty and conscience as a Time Lord just wouldn't let me. I could have done, too. I have thought of so many ways I could have gone back for her, but in the end I was able to let her go. What does that say about how much I cared for her? She was willing to rip apart reality to find me, and I never even tried. Even in loving someone, I find a way to shame myself.

I am tired of being in pain, Edie. I am so weary of regret. I look at you and I simply want to hold you.

When we met you were fragile, you were hurting. And so was I. Since then, we've both gotten so much stronger, so much more sure of who we are. I look at you and I see a woman who has lost more than most, someone who can understand even a tiny bit of what I feel every day. I love and respect the people who have come into my very long life, but you, Edith, you are more my equal than anyone since the Time War.

Edith, I never wanted to teach you how to pilot the TARDIS. I never meant for you to be able to read Gallifreyan. I never expected to hear my native tongue ever again. But there you are, swearing at me in in my own language, reading my notes, and flying my ship and it is so beautiful. You are so beautiful. A woman with eyes as green as apple grass and hair as red as the fields on Gallifrey, how can I resist you? You, a tiny woman who barely comes up to my shoulder, learned block transfer mathematics in a matter of days!

I know you think I don't notice you. At least, not the way a human man might. I know you think I'm not looking when you wear those dresses from the 1920's. I know you think I'm completely oblivious when I've done something to arouse you. I'm not oblivious, and I do notice. I'm simply better at keeping myself in check than human men. More than once I've wanted to grab my screwdriver out of your hand and be completely ungentlemanly. Do you remember the day I showed you how to check the causal nexus indicator for faults? You had your hair up and my screwdriver in your mouth and that corset top that belonged to Marie Curie. I was going to tell you your clothing was potentially radioactive. Blimey, those TARDIS knobs would have been uncomfortable...

We are both so much more than we were when we met. I can't thank you enough for simply being who you are and giving me so much of yourself. Which is why I am giving you back to the world, Edie. You have mourned your loss and moved on. I have finally learned to accept my faults and forgive myself, perhaps not completely, but more than I could have ever hoped for. The Earth needs more people like you Edie, and you need to have the opportunity to live your life as it was meant to be. I can't guarantee that you'll survive traveling with me. Selfishly, I want to keep you by my side, but if I'm honest, what I want more than anything is for you to live a long, long life.

If you were trapped in another universe, I would crack open the Earth to find a way back to you. I can't risk the pain of not knowing when or where you will be taken from me. I don't want your life to be held up as a prize for me to win or a ransom. You are worth so much more than that. I need to let you go before you're taken from me; we need to say goodbye on our own terms. I'll be honest, I need to feel in control again. Not knowing where we're headed leaves me reeling.

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><p>I read the unfinished letter. I had no idea when he had written it, as it wasn't dated. It had simply been sitting on the chaise lounge in the library when I'd gone to find him. We'd simply been drifting for three days, figuratively and in reality. We had barely spoken since encountering the Krillitane. I couldn't even be sure he had wanted me to find it and read it. But there is was, in English, with my name on it. The Doctor was a smart man, to say the least; he must have known I would find it.<p>

Right?

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><p>"You want me to leave." I approached him at the console. I caught him off guard, but when he saw the letter in my hand, he understood.<p>

"I want you safe." He looked away and began absentmindedly playing with the controls.

I chuckled wryly, "Safe? You think I would be safer on Earth, alone?"

"Yes - "

"Are you stupid?" The Doctor's mouth hung open as I laid into him. "Do you really think you can just drop me off like so much garbage and say have a nice day? You say you care so much about me, and yet you want to leave me behind."

"You would be safer, Edie, you know you would. I can't have my enemies thinking they can hold you for ransom! I can't risk everything just because I - "

"Because you what?" He turned away from me. "Because you care for me? Because I love you?"

He seemed to lose height as his shoulders slouched. I had hit a nerve. I could barely hear him as he spoke.

"I do care for you, Edie. But I don't want to see you scattered to atoms... I don't want to have to take your body back to Martha - "

"You don't want to see me grow old." I interrupted. I flinched when he rounded on me.

"No! No, I don't! I don't need to watch you wither and die while I go on, alone." His face was sad and angry and he couldn't meet my eyes.

It hit me then, neither of us wanted to need the other. "What about what you want, Doctor?"

"I want to live my life and let you live yours."

"And what about what I want? I want to live out my life on this ship, doing what we've always done - "

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me, his grip on my biceps bruising. "I can't, Edith. I just can't. Don't you see that?" He loosened his grip on my arms and we stood there regarding each other.

Finally, I took a step back. The Doctor sat heavily on the jump seat and pressed his palms into his eyes. "I'm sorry - "

"Nevermind." I snapped, reaching over to set coordinates for home.

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><p><strong>AN: PLEASE review. More romance and the big twist in the story coming up IF I see some reviews!**


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: I have to apologize for the hiatus I had to take from this story... and so close to the end too! I finished Nursing school, where I began this story during clinicals, needed to find a job and be a mom. I have the end mostly written. Just a few more chapters to go.**

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><p>The sun was rising, making shadows like water on the wall of my apartment. I was still sitting there, in filthy clothes, face still with dried tears. Throughout the night I had heard the sound outside on the street, and now, as muted light began streaming through the window, I couldn't deny it. The TARDIS had brought him back to me. Again.<p>

The first time I heard it, I thought it was part of a painful dream. The second time, a nightmare. Then I tried to ignore it. I had hoped exhaustion and grief would pull me down into sleep, but every time I heard it, it seemed to be louder than the last. A clap of thunder woke me fully and behind it, I could hear it. I finally went to the window and looked down, just as the first raindrops were beginning to fall. The entrance to the building was down to my left, but I couldn't see the stairs. All I could see was top of the TARDIS parked there. I could have reached down and touched it's beacon from the balcony.

I gave a wry chuckle. All this time, this sentient machine had been grooming me to be the Doctor's perfect companion, and she was not about to let the Doctor leave me behind. Oh, how I loved that beautiful ship. I felt her caress my mind, like a warm hand against my cheek.

I sat back down and waited. I had come to my conclusion and I closed my eyes. I concentrated as hard as my tired mind could, trying to use the TARDIS as a relay.

"We are stupid." I thought. "We are not healed until we can give in. Tell him."

I felt a purr inside my head, a mental smile. "Shor'ah." I whispered, greeting the TARDIS into my mind, in Gallifreyan. If jumping up and down with joy could be a mental sensation, thats what I felt.

I jumped when I heard the sonic at the lock of my door. I took a deep breath when it stopped short. He knocked softly.

"Gahroth'ah voohee'il mre tayghan." I responded. (The Goddess will not let you go.)

"Ril. Gahroth'ah voohee'il tag zoo bahrel zeeglah-oon." He said as he crossed the room to kneel in front of me. (No, she will not let me make that mistake.)

His face was tired and drawn, and he was as dirty as I was. I could see the mask of tears on his face as he brought his forehead to mine, hands around my face.

"I'm sorry, Edie. I'm stupid, so, so stupid." His teeth were clenched and his eyes closed, as if in pain. "I didn't see it. I couldn't see it. Couldn't see you. The TARDIS, she was giving me a gift, but I was too scared to notice." He let out a sob and and I couldn't stand it any longer. I pulled him into my chest and held him. I could feel him tremble.

"I know." I laid my head on his, taking in the scent of cloves and sweat that I had come to know as his scent. The rain began with a roll of thunder and a sharp crease of lighting against the sky. I gripped the back of his jacket and the leaves of his hair and rocked him, his weight like an anchor keeping me from floating away. His arms came around my waist and I felt his fingers against the bare skin of my back, paving a circle there.

The thunderstorm outside gave no indication of letting up as we sat there. Only the gunshot of a blown transformer somewhere outside broke our embrace. The electricity was out. I searched his eyes in the semi-darkness as he sat up to look at me. "Chahn i'lem zoo tay'ghan fe-om tsahnosh?" He asked. (May I write my love on you forever?)

"Volah." I answered. Yes.

He stood and held his hand out to me and I took it. I stood and he let me push his coat down over his shoulders. Silently, I undid his tie and the buttons of his jacket. His eyes never left mine as he let me slip the pinstripes off his arms. His hands went to my hips and slid under the shirt; his fingers were cool against my skin as he slid his hands up my ribcage. My sweater dropped to the floor with his coat.

His fingers were salty and soothing as he brushed them against my lips. He watched his own hands explore my face, map the curve of my ear and the line of my jaw. I undid his shirt buttons with care, pulling the hem from his trousers. Outside, the wind howled and rain bit at the windows. Even as the sun rose, I could barely see him in the dim morning light.

We were past the newness of each others bodies, but the depth of what I knew I felt for him was finally realized. I could only hope he was experiencing the same, as he gently undressed me, his eyes worshiping me as he did. Before, I had never had a chance to touch him, really feel his body beneath my hands. Exposed to me, I pressed both palms to his chest to feel his hearts beating there. His fingers followed my shoulder along my collarbone and down my sternum, resting between my naked breasts in response.

The panicked desire and adrenaline fueled need was gone from our kiss and left in their place was only reverence and dare I say it, love. We knew each others mouths and the fit of our hips against each other. We could finally look into each others eyes and without words express what we needed, and realize those desires.

On my unused bed, he pulled me into his lap and I wrapped my legs around him. I threaded my fingers into his hair as he supported my back and pulled me against him.

"Look into me." He whispered. I found his eyes looking into me as he entered me and he caught my lips with his as I gasped.

We watched each other as he moved inside me, and I on him. We found a rhythm that brought beads of sweat out on my chest and he licked them away with a low growl. He pushed his hand into my hair as my head threatened to fall back. He pulled the tie out of my hair and let it fall around us. I could see the fantasy forming in his mind: my tiny naked body spread out before him in a field of red grass. I could see it so clearly, I could feel his fingers pluck a silver leaf from my hair. Every time my eyes threatened to close, his mind would bring them back to his.

I knew our differing physiology would mean a different sort of lovemaking than I was accustomed to, but I was unprepared for the extent to which our psychic connection would heighten our senses. I could feel his pleasure on top of my own, and he was experiencing mine. We inched toward the edge of orgasm and he would bring me back, holding me tightly against him until my pulse slowed. He would hold me away from himself then and take his time, touching and taking in this body as we opened our minds to one another. We were like fire and ice, his cool skin against my own, growing hotter as we moved together. This time we were slow and deliberate, trying desperately to make it last forever. Finally, when he brought his cool fingers down to touch the place where our bodies joined, I lost all control. Every nerve fired and we fell through a haze of stars together.

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><p><strong>Please check out my Walking Dead story, <em>Thistle and Weeds.<em> Reviews are love... the more reviews, the sooner I post the big reveal! :D**


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